Narciso Platero Abeyta Original Navajo Painting of His Daughter [SOLD]

C4208-paint.jpg

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Narciso Platero Abeyta, Ha So De, Navajo Painter
  • Category: Paintings
  • Origin: Diné of the Navajo Nation
  • Medium: Opaque Watercolor
  • Size:
    23-½” x 17-½” image;
    31-½” x 25-1⁄4” framed
  • Item # C4208
  • SOLD

Photo Source: Wikipedia - Narciso Platero Abeyta Diné Painter of the Navajo NationThis wonderful painting by Narciso Abeyta “Ha So De” illustrates why the Diné painter’s works have an enduring appeal with Native art collectors.  We are always delighted by the arrival of a major work by this artist. Ha So De’s work is here is as strong as ever, and his chosen subject matter makes the piece even more special.  This is a painting of Ha So De’s daughter, completed in the singular style that continues to appeal to collectors. The artist’s love for his subject is evident in this image. It feels warm and endearing, informed by more by affection than anything else.  Ha So De’s works are so expressive and unique that they always feel very genuine, but this image stands out in that regard. It’s actually more restrained in some ways than his more common animal and mythological scenes, and that restraint serves this particular image well.  It feels very real, as true-to-life as a Ha So De painting can be, but every bit as expressive and evocative as his wilder works. As admirers who handle his works frequently and enthusiastically, we can say with confidence that this piece is remarkable. It’s graceful and elegant—subdued, almost, but immediately recognizable as the work of this gifted individualist.

Ha So De’s subject sits cross-legged and faces the viewer directly, turning her head to her right, allowing the viewer to see her face and her traditional Diné hairstyle in profile.  Between her arms, she cradles a basket full of corn. It’s an appealing arrangement that allows the artist’s exceptional linework to shine. As per Ha So De’s usual, the linework here is fantastic.  He uses multiple wide series of lines in complementary but non-naturalistic colors to frame his subjects, creating images that are clearly representational but also very dreamlike—surreal, at times.  Here, he adds blue and white to his subject’s head, pink and blue to the corn she cradles, and gold and pink to the basket in which she carries her corn. Her skirt, which spreads out in a semicircle, covers the majority of the painting’s lower half.  It’s made of a delightful combination of colors—rich maroons, purples, and pinks, augmented with splashes of white, green and blue—that rewards the viewer who chooses to give it a close study.

Narciso Platero Abeyta (1918-1998) Ha So De was a painter and silversmith from the Navajo culture. He was also, among other things, a Golden Gloves boxer and one of the hundreds of Navajo Code Talkers who served in the Marines during World War II. He and wife Sylvia Ann had seven children, many of whom—Tony Abeyta, Elizabeth Abeyta Rohrscheib and Pablita Abeyta—became notable artists themselves. He is highly revered by collectors of Native American paintings, and his works are included in numerous prestigious public and private collections.

Abeyta received his initial art education at the Santa Fe Indian School, whose art instructor Dorothy Dunn commented on his abilities in her book American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas: "Ha-So-De developed a markedly unique style, although, in his formative period, his admiration for the work of (Navajo painter Andy) Tsihnahjinnie could be clearly seen. It was a fine influence and used honorably by the younger painter. His paintings of hunt and home scenes were broad in brushwork and flowing in line, at times appearing almost nonchalant. He was never concerned with small detail but only with the sweep and dash of movement in wild, free scenes. His was a positive art." He received further education at the University of New Mexico, where he studied under famous modernist painter Raymond Jonson.

Artist Signature - Narciso Platero Abeyta Diné Painter of the Navajo NationThis painting dates to the 1970s.  It is signed Ha So De in lower right, and framed in an elegant wood frame, underneath a wide off-white mat with a thin pink interior mat that matches the painting.


Provenance: Purchased by its current owner in the early 1990s from a gallery in Gallup, New Mexico

Condition: this Narciso Platero Abeyta Original Navajo Painting of His Daughter is in excellent condition

Recommended Reading: American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn

Artist Image Source: Wikipedia

Relative Links: Narciso Abeyta - Ha So De, Navajo - DinéNative American Paintings, Dorothy DunnTony AbeytaElizabeth Abeyta Rohrscheib

Close up view of the woman in this painting.

Narciso Platero Abeyta, Ha So De, Navajo Painter
  • Category: Paintings
  • Origin: Diné of the Navajo Nation
  • Medium: Opaque Watercolor
  • Size:
    23-½” x 17-½” image;
    31-½” x 25-1⁄4” framed
  • Item # C4208
  • SOLD

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