Original Painting of a Pueblo Eagle Dancer [SOLD]

Suina has the Indian sense of color which is usually unerring.  Like many of his contemporaries, he has used colored and textured papers.  He has painted in tempera and seems to favor blue in rich tones and other bright colors. 

Suina was born at Cochiti Pueblo in 1918 and is still living.  He survived a broken neck as a youngster by concentrating on painting seriously.  His teachers at the Cochiti Pueblo day school and Geronimo Montoya at the Santa Fe Indian School encouraged him to continue.

In 1939, architect John Gaw Meem commissioned a number of Native artists to paint murals on a building he designed for the Maisel Company in Albuquerque.  Popovi Da, Pablita Velarde and Pop Chalee painted northern Pueblo subjects, while Ben Quintana, Ku-Pe-Ru and Joe H. Herrera did Keres motifs.  Other Indians painted subjects from their tribal affiliation.  Ku-Pe-Ru painted a Corn Dancer.

This painting of a Pueblo Eagle Dancer is strong in color and impressive as a strong dancer.  The eagle feathers are rendered in true form with eagle down at the dancer's arms.  The red, green and black sashes and leg ties are in fine detail.

The painting was completed when the artist was 28 years old.  It is signed in lower right Ku-pe-ru and dated '46. 

Condition: appears to be in original condition but has not been examined out of the frame

Provenance:  from a gentleman in California

Recommended Reading:  Southwest Indian Painting: a Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner