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# Navajo Chicken Fight

Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery

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                      - Print
                      -     Object Details- Artist
- Awa Tsireh, born San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM1898-died San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM ca. 1955
- 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.
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Corbin-Henderson Collection, gift of Alice H. Rossin
- ca. 1925-1930
- Object number
- 1979.144.30
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- watercolor and ink on paperboard
- Dimensions
- sheet: 11 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. (28.5 x 36.2 cm)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Graphic Arts
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Topic
- Indian\Navajo
- Animal\bird\chicken
- Ceremony\Indian
- Equestrian
- Record ID
- saam_1979.144.30
- Metadata Usage (text)
- Not determined
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk71f8cd547-4cff-4c89-a743-c7575a696892
  CC0Creative Commons - No Rights Reserved iconUsage Conditions Apply>download icon>          There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .        International media Interoperability FrameworkIIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.View manifestView in Mirador ViewerExpand to view image×                             Footer logo      
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