Adobe Gallery Blog
San Ildefonso Single Figure Female Dancer with Tableta by Tonita Vigil Peña - C3883B
Tonita Peña was born at San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1893 and lived there with her parents until her mother passed away around 1905 when Tonita was 12 years old. Unable to tend his fields and raise a young daughter, her father sent Tonita to Cochiti Pueblo to live with her aunt and uncle. Tonita spoke Tewa, the language of San Ildefonso, and had to learn Keres, the language of Cochiti Pueblo. Having lost her mother, and essentially lost her father, and having to learn a new language and fit a society of which she was unfamiliar must have been traumatic for a young girl.
Tonita painted scenes of San Ildefonso ceremonial life as she remembered it and became a very famous painter. She is considered the very first pueblo female painter who succeeded in the male-dominated field of art. She was accepted by the men as an equal, although that probably took some time before it happened. She has also always been recognized as a painter from San Ildefonso, because that was her family home. She is never listed as an artist from Cochiti.