Untitled Painting of Five Horses [SOLD]

Narciso Platero Abeyta (1918-1998) Ha So De was a Navajo painter and silversmith who was born in Correo, New Mexico in 1920. 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. Abeyta studied at the Santa Fe Indian School, and attended the University of New Mexico after his World War II service ended.  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.

Santa Fe Indian School 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.

Clara Lee Tanner’s Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art provides a concise description of Abeyta’s wonderfully atypical style:  “Much of Abeyta’s work does not resemble the usual Navajo style, even though his subject matter is Indian.  In particular, his colors are more apt to be on the somber side, for he features blacks, browns, burnt ochre, and reds... In his later work, Ha So De adhered to many of the individual principles he established early in his painting career.  He was more interested in bold effects than in minute detail.” Tanner also lists a few of Abeyta’s many notable exhibits, awards and accomplishments, including exhibits “throughout the United States and Paris.”

This lovely untitled painting of five horses was, according to the artist’s son, Tony Abeyta, completed in the early 1980s.  Tanner’s remarks about Abeyta being “more interested in bold effects than in minute detail” most certainly apply to this enchanting image, as do her notes about his preferred color palette.  His horses are, as per usual, fantastic creations that bear little resemblance to those featured in the works of other Navajo painters. Abeyta’s most recognizably individualistic tendency—his surreal-looking doubled and tripled lines in various complementary, non-naturalistic colors—serves this particular image extraordinarily well.  His horses’ colors are (at least by Abeyta’s standards) mostly natural. The thick pink, white and red lines that surround and define them, however, are decidedly unusual. That three of them appear to be flying makes the scene appear even more dreamlike and magical. The trees, too, are incredible. Their trunks and branches are realistically shaped but embellished with incredible clusters of red and blue spots. From each of these forms, a circular arrangement of thin blue lines protrudes. The rich blue-green used for the trees provides a wonderful contrast to the horses’ colors, resulting in an image that is simultaneously elegant and surreal. This painting is an ethereal wonder from one of the great Native individualists.

Tony Abeyta recalled seeing his dad paint this one shortly after acquiring a new wide and flat paint brush which he used in varying positions—flat, on the end, sideways, while experimenting.

Condition: this Untitled Painting of Five Horses is in excellent condition

Provenance: from the collection of a Texas resident

Recommended Reading:

- Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner

- American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn