Original Painting titled “Feathered Serpent” [SOLD]

David Chethlahe Paladin (1926-1984) was born on the Navajo Reservation in 1926 at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. While his style shifted and evolved drastically during his career, his themes remained simple and universal.  He celebrated life and spirituality in his work, as many Native American artists do, though his perspective was informed by a uniquely challenging early life. His story seems mythological, and most certainly shaped his interest in using his art to celebrate creation, life, death, and rebirth.

Paladin was educated by Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School.  Though he occasionally resisted Dunn’s instruction, he learned the basic fundamentals of painting and was encouraged to celebrate his cultural heritage.  Paladin was mixed-race—his mother Navajo, his father a white missionary—at a time when interracial relationships were uncommon and unfortunately frowned upon by society.  Paladin struggled with his mixed-race identity and fell into alcoholism at a young age, eventually leaving the reservation and making his way to California. He lied about his age and worked on a merchant ship, where he spent much of his free time drawing.

After enlisting in the US Army—some say that he was all but forced to do so after lying about his age to board a Merchant Marine ship—Paladin found himself serving behind enemy lines during World War II. Like many Native Americans who served in World War II, he gathered information and relayed it back to US forces using his native language. He was ultimately captured, interrogated, and tortured. His life was ultimately spared by a young German soldier who he’d befriended years ago aboard the merchant ship on which he’d stowed away as a young man.  When the Allies finally rescued Paladin and his fellow prisoners, they found him severely injured, traumatized, and speaking Russian. Paladin later claimed that he was speaking Russian because, in his near-death state, he’d begun to energetically merge with and channel influential Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Paladin’s recovery was an arduous process that began at a VA hospital in Michigan and ended, symbolically at least, back where it all began—in the Little Colorado River at the Navajo Reservation where he’d grown up.   The tribe’s elders removed the leg braces that he’d worn during his stay at the VA hospital because of injuries sustained while being tortured. They tied a rope around his waist and sent him into the river, telling him, “Call back your spirit or die.”  Paladin recounted this process of cleansing and rebirth as the single most difficult moment of a tremendously challenging and traumatic life. Paladin devoted his life to creating art and teaching young artists. He became a shaman, serving as a spiritual counselor to other recovering addicts.  His hard-won life experience gave him a unique artistic vision, that explored universal themes of life, death, rebirth and spirituality.

This excellent painting, titled “Feathered Serpent,” is one of the finest Paladin paintings that we’ve had the pleasure of handling.  Paladin’s subject here is an Avanyu-type serpent figure with bright red horns and a fantastic multicolored body. The Avanyu appears to be ascending, winding upwards.  Its tongue is extended outward and upward, leading the way. Most excitingly, this appears to be happening in outer space. Colorful stars, a planet, and Pueblo rain cloud imagery surround the Avanyu. Paladin’s black-and-white background is every bit as impressive as his primary subject.  Clouds of hazy white light swell in the distance behind a massive sea of small stars, creating an incredible display of celestial beauty. Its rich texture—created using some sort of atomizer, probably—allows the image to accurately convey the feeling of wonder one experiences when staring into a starry sky.

“Feathered Serpent” (or “Cosmic Avanyu,” as it has been affectionately dubbed by Adobe Gallery’s staff) is placed in a beautiful wood frame.  Its title is written on the back of the frame. The painting is signed “Chethlahe” in its lower right corner.

Condition: this original painting titled "Feathered Serpent" is in excellent condition.  There is a minor stain on the fabric section of the frame, which we will have replaced at no cost to the purchaser

Provenance: from the estate of a large collection of a New York resident

Recommended Reading: Painting the Dream: The Visionary Art of Navajo Painter David Chethlahe Paladin by David Paladin (author)

 on board