Awa Tsireh

Született: 1898

Halál: 1955

Életrajz:

Awa Tsireh Roybal also became a painter. Awa Tsireh was one of the earliest of the San Ildefonso painters. His formal education ended at grade school but he drew from his culture and informal training. Awa Tsireh is also among the students of Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, who instructed students in painting from her own home.
In 1917, American artist William Penhallow Henderson painted a portrait of young Awa Tsireh, which is now held by the New Mexico Museum of Art. Henderson's wife, Alice Corbin Henderson, was a patron of Awa Tsireh.
In 1920 Awa Tsireh married a young woman from his village. The following year she gave birth to a son, but both mother and child died soon after. Affected greatly, Awa Tsireh moved to his parents' home.
Awa Tsireh had the support of Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett, who provided studio space for him in the Palace of the Governors. His art is in the permanent collection of several museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
At various times in his life, Awa Tsireh worked as a farmer, a pottery painter, a museum employee, a painter, a silversmith and a muralist, often combining activities. One of his most notable artistic commissions was for a mural at Maisel's Indian Trading Post in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Murals depicting Indian life, painted by Pueblo and Navajo artists, were prominently displayed.
Awa Tsireh worked in watercolor and in transparent colored ink and pencil. He also created silver and gemstone pieces of art. Awa Tsireh painted in three different styles, "a simple realism, a combination of symbolism and realism, and a completely non-realistic style," per Samuels' Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, (1968).
It is not known when, or from whom, Awa Tsireh learned silversmithing, but by 1931 newspaper articles described him as a painter, silversmith and dancer. Around 1930 he began working in the summer months at Garden of the Gods Trading Post in Colorado Springs. He was employed there for at least two decades. His sister, Santana Martinez, recalled that "during the summer during the thirties and forties he used to go to a shop in Colorado Springs and do paintings and silverwork there." He worked in silver, copper, nickel silver and aluminum.
• Awa Tsireh art collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum

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