SPECIAL PRICE OFFER: Elaborate Painting of a Turkey by Awa Tsireh [SOLD]

PRICE REDUCTION: The owners wish to sell this so they have requested we reduce the asking price by 30% from $2,850 to $1,995.

This painting is an excellent example of a style of painting, executed by Awa Tsireh, called “representational plus conventional.” The turkey was executed in a very representational style decorated with traditional designs normally seen on pueblo pottery.

Awa Tsireh was early recognized beyond his native world as an outstanding Indian artist. His watercolors where sent by Alice Corbin Henderson to the Arts Club of Chicago for a special exhibit in 1920. His paintings appeared in early exhibits in Santa Fe, and he was among the several artists to receive prizes at the first Santa Fe Indian Market. In 1925, the Chicago papers were generous in their acclaim for his exhibit in the Newberry Library. The Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts in New York in 1931 included Awa Tsireh paintings.

Awa Tsireh’s style was basically a form of naïve realism used to portray everyday and religious scenes, with human figure most often predominant. This painting is typical of his style. There is no ground line, not even a patch of earth appears beneath or around the central figure of a turkey.

Awa Tsireh was many things to his pueblo; he was a farmer, pottery painter, museum employee, painter and silversmith. He was born in 1898 and died in 1955.

Awa Tsireh was painting before 1917. He was the oldest of the early group of pueblo painters. His formal education had not extended beyond primary grades. He was versatile in his styles of painting. He was equally comfortable with representational or semi-realistic, representational plus conventional, and abstract.

This painting is in excellent condition, however it does appear that there has been some professional conservation to the paper, mostly confined to the extremities. There is no repair to the turkey image. The painting is signed in lower right. It is framed using archival materials, including UV glass.