Untitled Navajo Painting of Horse, Fish and Fly by Beatien Yazz [SOLD]

This untitled casein painting was created by Diné artist Beatien Yazz.  The artist is known for warm, serene depictions of everyday life on the Navajo reservation.  This is a particularly lively scene featuring a horse, a fish and a fly. The fish leaps out of water toward the fly; the horse stares at and runs toward the fish.  We’ve handled many paintings by Beatien Yazz over the years, and have never seen one quite like this. The fish, most certainly, is something that doesn’t appear often in Diné imagery.  Its appearance here is unexpected and delightful.

Yazz painted his animals with great care, as usual, and paid extra attention to the surrounding scene.  A body of water is a welcome diversion from the norm, as is the mesa in the background. Behind the mesa, thick white clouds billow into an otherwise clear blue sky.  Two birds circle overhead. Yazz sometimes used bright, bold, non-naturalistic colors in his works; and he usually did so effectively. Here, he used naturalistic colors, a decision that serves the image well.  The scene is unusual and exciting, but still retains the warm appeal of his more typical works.

The painting is signed “B. Yazz” in lower right.  It is framed in a black frame, under two layers of matting in gray and black.

Beatien Yazz (1928-2012) Little No Shirt (Jimmy Toddy) was a painter who was born in 1928 on the Navajo Reservation.  At an early age, Yazz met Bill and Sallie Lippencott, traders at the Wide Ruins Trading Post. They recognized Yazz’s talent and made available to him scraps of paper and other equipment so that he might practice his artwork.  Alberta Hannum’s book Spin a Silver Dollar told the story of the Lippencotts and the young Navajo boy they encouraged.  The book was illustrated by the boy himself—Beatien Yazz. He served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and was a member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers. Following the war, he returned to the reservation and began to paint in earnest. He specialized in subjects familiar to him in his daily life on the reservation. He has been eminently popular with collectors since the 1950s.

Condition: this Untitled Navajo Painting of Horse, Fish and Fly by Beatien Yazz is in excellent condition

Provenance: from the Balcomb family, who operated galleries in Gallup and Albuquerque in the 1960s and 1970s

Recommended Reading: Yazz - Navajo Painter by J. J. Brody

Relative Links: Beatien Yazz, Fine Art - Native American Paintings, Navajo