A Pair of Paintings of Pueblo Corn Dancers [SOLD]

Tonita Vigil Peña (1893-1949) Quah Ah did not have an easy life.  She lost her mother and sister when she was 12 years old and then was sent by her father from San Ildefonso, her native pueblo, to live with an aunt and uncle at Cochiti Pueblo. She essentially lost her father at that time as well.  She had to learn new customs, dances, songs and even a new language, because Keres was spoken at Cochiti rather than Tewa, which was spoken at San Ildefonso.

Her first husband, Juan Rosario Chavez, whom she married in 1908 when she was 15 years old and he 20, passed away three years after their marriage.  She married Felipe Herrera in 1913 and he died in a work accident in 1920.  Her third husband, Epitacio Arquero, outlived Tonita by a few years.  They had a loving marriage and produced five children.

As Tonita’s children got older, they assumed the responsibility of taking care of each other, allowing Tonita more time to pursue painting and to eventually teach painting classes at the Santa Fe Indian School and the Albuquerque Indian School.

Ina Sizer Cassidy commented on Tonita in an article in New Mexico Magazine in 1933: “I have watched Tonita Peña of Cochiti, for instance, with watercolors and virgin paper, absorbed in materializing her concepts of the ceremonial dances and I have watched her plastering the walls of her adobe home, small palms outspread smoothing the velvety brown mud over the surface with care and creative concentration.  I have also watched her in the ceremonial dances in the plaza, her consecrated hands waving evergreen wands, rhythmically keeping time to the measured beat of the drum, and tread of her bare feet on the hot earth, and there is in all of these activities the same creative aesthetic quality which has made her one of the outstanding Indian painters of New Mexico, and I believe the only Indian woman to attain distinction in this newly revived expression.”

Tonita had a busy life teaching classes, raising children, taking care of the house and husband, and yet found time to produce a large number of paintings.  This pair of paintings of a two male dancers is each signed in lower right Quah Ah. Tonita peña, a signature she began to use in 1921.

These paintings are presented and priced as a pair at $1450 but may be purchased individually for $850.  The paintings illustrate accurately the clothing and accessories worn by these dancers and together they provide a good ethnographic document of early 20th century dance paraphernalia.  They are framed in matching frames, acid-free mats, and museum glass and are ready to hang and enjoy.

Condition: original condition

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

Provenance: from a private collection