page_title: Pablita Velarde
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Pablita Velarde / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Basketmaking c 1940 By Pablita Velarde The man in the foreground makes a basket of yucca leaves, while the man behind him makes a twilled basket, the woman prepares materials, and two men bring more materials. This work was commissioned by Bandelier National Monument under the Works Progress Administration [WPA] program. Casein paint, board. L 28.3, W 28.3 cm [L 11 1/2, W 11 1/8 inches] Bandelier National Monument, BAND 708 URL: http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/band/exb_art/BAND708_painting_exb.html Photo courtesy of the US National Park Service
context_page_description: Pablita Velarde born Tse Tsan was an American Pueblo artist and painter.
context_section_description: Velarde's early paintings were exclusively watercolors, but later in life she learned how to prepare paints from natural pigments using a process similar to, but not the same as fresco secco. She used these paints to produce what she called "earth paintings". She obtained 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 in her native New Mexico, as well as in Florida and California. Her mural commissions were funded by the WPA.
  In 1960, she published a book which features six Tewa tribal stories, "Old Father the Story Teller".
  In a 1979 interview she said, "Painting was not considered women's work in my time. A woman was supposed to be just a woman, like a housewife and a mother and chief cook. Those were things I wasn't interested in."
  Velarde's work is exhibited in public and private collections including the Bandelier National Monument museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Avery Collection at the Arizona State Museum, the Ruth and Charles Elkus Collection of Native American Art, and in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
  Margarete Bagshaw founded in 2012 the Pablita Velarde Museum of Indian Women dedicated to her grandmother's legacy as well as other female Native American artists in Santa Fe, however it closed in 2015 when Margarete died.
caption: Basketmaking, c. 1940, by Pablita Velarde
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