SOUTHWEST INDIAN DRYPAINTING: Southwest Indian Arts Series [SOLD]

From the Back Cover:

Drypainting is the art of making pictures by placing dry colored materials on a horizontal surface, usually on a background of earth, sand, skin, or cloth. Most often it is practiced in a religious context. In the United States, the term usually refers to the sandpaintings used in religious ceremonials by the Navajo Indians, who perhaps have developed the art to its highest degree. Their ephemeral religious art has fascinated the world since the first copies were published a century ago. Leland C. Wyman has devoted a lifetime of study to the subject, making himself aware of every known Navajo sandpainting, whether it was photographed, copied, or described in ethnographic field notes. In his foreword David P. McAllester compares Leland Wyman's study and collection of Navajo ceremonial art to the collection of James Child of what came to be known as the Child Ballads. The latest volume in the School of American Research Southwest Indian Arts Series represents the summary of Wyman's knowledge of this remarkable art form.