Original Watercolor of a “Navajo Woman” [SOLD]

This painting of a Navajo woman on horseback is another very fine painting by Andrew Tsihnahjinnie.  It was executed in water-based paints on paper.  It has less of an Asian influence seen in some of Tsihnahjinnie’s post World War II paintings following his tour of duty in the Pacific Theater. 

The Navajo woman is dressed in traditional clothing—velveteen blouse, pleated skirt, doe-skin moccasins and hair tied up in a chonga.  The horse appears to be slowly moving along as if they are in no hurry.  A sun symbol with buffalo horns and rays hangs overhead as a protector of the horse and rider.  The painting is signed in lower right Tsihnahjinnie.  It is not dated.  Written in pencil on verso is “Navajo Woman, Tsihnahjinnie $9.00,” a price that would indicate the painting was for sale in the mid-1950s.

“Andrew Tsihnahjinnie, in many respects—incisive interpretation, spontaneity of brushwork, originality of color, vigor of draftsmanship and vitality of action—had no equals among the artists of the (Santa Fe Indian School) studio and perhaps few superiors among modern painters. If equanimity and self-confidence were to rule his artistic abilities, Tsihnahjinnie might well be one of America’s top-ranking painters. In the brief seasons when he felt freed to paint the things he knew so deeply, without troubled concern for doing otherwise, his work attained a trenchant beauty, unique in modern art.”  Dorothy Dunn, 1963

Condition: appears to be in original condition.  It is framed using accredited materials and a brown wood frame. 

Reference:  American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn.  This book is currently not available from Adobe Gallery.

Provenance: from a private collection from Oklahoma