Awa Tsireh, born San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM1898-died San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM ca. 1955 Search this
Medium:
watercolor and ink on paper
Dimensions:
sheet: 11 1/4 x 7 1/8 in. (28.6 x 18.1 cm)
Type:
Painting
Date:
ca. 1930-1940
Exhibition Label:
The paintings of Awa Tsireh (1898-1955), who was also known by his Spanish name, Alfonso Roybal, represent an encounter between the art traditions of native Pueblo peoples in the southwestern United States and the American modernist art style begun in New York in the early twentieth century. The son of distinguished potters, Awa Tsireh translated geometic pottery designs into stylized watercolors that feature the ceremonial dancers and practices of Pueblo communities. But Awa Tsireh's work is more than an amalgam of traditional and modernist design. At a time when the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs attempted to restrict Pueblo cultural and religious practices, the watercolors of Awa Tsireh and other Pueblo artists helped to affirm the importance of ceremonial dance and tirual to cultural survival.
Awa Tsireh's paintings quickly found an audience among the artists, writers, and archaeologists who descended on Santa Fe in great numbers in the late 1910s and 1920s. Painter John Sloan and poet Alice Corbin Henderson took a particular interest and arranged for his watercolors to be exhibited in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. Henderson shared with the young Pueblo painter books on European and American modernism and Japanese woodblock prints, as well as South Asian miniatures and ancient Egyptian art that provided soure material for his stylized paintings. In this way, he redefined contemporary Pueblo art and created a new, pan-Pueblo style.
The paintings in this exhibition were donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1979 by the Hendersons' daughter, Alice H. Rossin.
Awa Tsireh created stunning works depicting the daily and ceremonial life of Pueblo communities in the Southwest. During his life, the U.S. government, under an assimilationist mandate, attempted to stamp out ritual Pueblo practices even as white anthropologists and patrons, believing in preservationist ideas, supported his work and, in a sense, defended the value of Native culture. Awa Tsireh's work emerged out of his careful negotiation of these forces and his efforts to resist cultural oppression and protect Pueblo sacred knowledge. Rather than paint scenes of rituals meant only for the initiated, Awa Tsireh chose to portray aspects of public ceremonies that were acceptable for outsider eyes.
Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, 2023
Awa Tsireh creó unas obras asombrosas que describen la vida cotidiana y ceremonial de las comunidades Pueblo del sudoeste. Durante su vida, el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos, según un mandato de asimilación, trató de erradicar las prácticas rituales Pueblo aun cuando varios antropólogos y mecenas, que creían en las ideas conservacionistas, apoyaban su trabajo y, en cierto sentido, defendían el valor de la cultura nativa. La obra de Awa Tsireh surgió de su manera cautelosa de afrontar estas fuerzas y de sus actividades para resistir la opresión cultural y proteger el conocimiento sagrado de la comunidad Pueblo. En lugar de pintar escenas de rituales destinadas solamente a los iniciados, Awa Tsireh optó por describir aspectos de las ceremonias públicas que eran aceptables para los ojos de los observadores externos.
Más de un oeste: Visiones artísticas de una idea estadounidense, 2023
