Untitled Painting of a Navajo Warrior on Horseback [SOLD]

A Navajo artist who attended the Santa Fe Indian School in 1936-37 was Wade Hadley, whose Diné name was To’dachine. It is estimated that he was born around 1924.  Clara Lee Tanner states that he attended the Santa Fe Indian School in 1936-37.  Dorothy Dunn mentions him in her chapter on the Indian School in 1937. This painting has a notation on verso that it was painted when he was an 8th grade student in 1938 or 1939.  These dates all fairly well compare. Tanner also states that he was drafted before Pearl Harbor, and was in the Pacific theater for the entire period of World War II. If he was drafted in 1941, he would have been 17, which also corresponds to the chronology above.  Tanner further states that “Seemingly, Hadley returned to the Navajo Reservation, worked for a trader, and was not again heard from in the art world.”

Dorothy Dunn, in discussing the Pueblo and Navajo students of The Studio in the class of 1937, stated that  “The Navajo artists had no precedent in modern painting. Obviously the sandpainting designs could not, by their completely religious nature, be the major basis for development of a modern style even though they would provide a rich source of motif to be used in connection with Navajo subjects and for adaptations in pure abstract design.

As the Navajo artists advanced their work, the general character of technique became that of flat application of color surrounded by outline.  The most common subjects were ceremonials, games, races and riders, sheep herding, animals, portrayals of crafts workers, and scenes within and about the hogan. Dunn 1963:300

Wade Hadley (To’dachine) deftly painted all manner of plants and animals of the Navajo environment, imparting to them equally warm realism and decorative design.  His brushwork was exceptionally fine and surely controlled. His color, which ran to grays, browns, greens, and golds, was never harshly mixed. Dunn 1963:301

In some of his later paintings there is such decorative detail, a suggestion of the imaginative, a sense of rhythm and balance, and potentials in composition and execution,  His colors are limited, as he featured browns, grays, and greens, with occasional touches of brighter tones. Tanner 1973:360

In this painting, that was completed when he was in 8th grade, he did not comply with the lack of color choices indicated by Dunn and Tanner.  His use of yellow striped trousers and a bright blue shirt for the Indian and rich brown for the horse are still brilliant and strong after some 80 years.

The painting is not signed on the front, but fully noted on the paper on the back of the painting.  It has just been re-matted with archival materials and placed back in the original Indian School handmade wood frame.

Assuming that Clara Lee Tanner was correct in stating that he returned to the reservation after dismissal from the service after World War II and did not paint again, then this must be one of the few surviving paintings by Hadley.  We have only had one other original painting by him and it was dated 1940, also completed before he went into the military service.

Condition: this Untitled Painting of a Navajo Warrior on Horseback is in very good condition, still vivid and rich colors

Provenance: from the collection of a gentleman from Albuquerque

References:

- Dunn, Dorothy. American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas, UNM Press, 1963

- Tanner, Clara Lee. Southwest Indian Painting a changing art,  University of Arizona Press, 1973