Pablita Velarde
| Pablita Velarde | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Tse Tsan September 19, 1918 Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, USA |
| Died | January 12, 2006 (aged 87) Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA |
| Nationality | USA |
| Education | Dorothy Dunn, Santa Fe Studio Art School |
| Known for | Painter |
| Awards | Palmes Académiques |
Pablita Velarde (September 19, 1918 – January 12, 2006) born Tse Tsan (Tewa, "Golden Dawn") was an American painter.
Velarde was born on Santa Clara Pueblo near Española, New Mexico. After the death of her mother when Pablita was about five years old, she and two of her sisters were sent to St Catherine's Indian School in Santa Fe. At the age of fourteen, she was accepted to Dorothy Dunn's Santa Fe Studio Art School at the Santa Fe Indian School. There, she becomes an accomplished painter in the Dunn style, known as "flat painting".
Her early paintings were exclusively watercolors, but later in life she learned how to prepare paints from natural pigments (a process similar to, but not the same as fresco secco). She used these paints to produce what she called "earth paintings". She obtained the pigments from minerals and rocks, which she ground on a metate and mano until the result was a powdery substance from which she made her paints.
In 1939, Velarde was commissioned by the National Park Service under a grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to depict scenes of traditional Pueblo life for visitors to the Bandelier National Monument.
Following her work at Bandelier, Velarde went on to become one of the most accomplished Native American painters of her generation, with solo exhibitions throughout the United States, including her native New Mexico, as well as Florida and California. In 1953, she was the first woman to receive the Grand Purchase Award at the Philbrook Museum of Art’s Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Painting. In 1954 the French government honored her with the Palmes Académiques for excellence in art. In 1960 she published a book of stories and paintings, Old Father, the Storyteller.
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