Deer Dancers

This composition relates easily to an early Awa Tsireh painting covering two pages in Pardue and Sandfield's volume Awa Tsireh Pueblo Painter and Metalsmith on pages 24 and 25.  In the book the same deer dancer figures (two tall and two small) are depicted, accompanied by other processional figures.

Alfonso Roybal (1898-1955, San Ildefonso pueblo), better known as Awa Tsireh, was born and raised at San Ildefonso pueblo in New Mexico.

Awa Tsireh was a farmer, painter, pottery painter and a silversmith. He was employed by the School of American Research in Santa Fe to depict his people’s customs and traditions, along with Fred Kabotie and Velino Shije Herrera.

His work is in major collections including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the School of American Research in Santa Fe, the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Museum of Northern Arizona. Awa Tsireh has been featured in Arizona Highways, Southwest Art and Southwestern Art. Awa Tsireh is cited in Song from the Earth by Highwater, Southwest Indian Painting by Tanner, American Indian Painting by Dunn, the Pueblo Indian Painting by Brody, When the Rainbow Touches Down by Seymour, American Indian Painters A Biographical Directory by Snodgrass, and the Biographical Directory of American Indian Painters by Lester.

Awa Tsireh's work is included in the exhibit "Beautiful Resistance: Works on Paper from the Heard Museum Collection" May 22 - December, 2005.