Buffalo Who Wouldn’t Die
Pablita Velarde
Created : 1959
Loaned :
Medium : Mural
Dimensions: 4″x16″
Located: 3rd Floor,North Main Hallway
Pablita Velarde”s earth pigments on masonite mural has been on loan since 1993
The Buffalo Who Wouldn’t Die (1959)
Earth pigments on masonite
Pablita Velarde (1918–2006)
Santa Fe
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sylvain Segal, Jr.
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture / Laboratory of Anthropology
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pablita Velarde is a beloved New Mexico artist who has produced literally thousands of paintings in a career that began at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932. As the only female student in Dorothy Dunn’s painting studio, she was teased.
“They would say to me, ‘You can’t draw. Go back to the kitchen,’” Velarde remembers. Nevertheless, she persisted and has become one of the best known artists of her genre, “a resourceful and adept painter,” according to Dunn. Velarde remembers that Dunn “taught me color and perspective and gave me advice on how to improve.” She said, “Pablita, you could go a long way if you put yourself to it.”
Velarde first learned to use earth pigments in Dunn’s studio. It took decades to master the technique, which requires the collection of a different earth or mineral for each color, grinding the minerals and earth with a mano and metate into powder, mixing the earth to a “pudding” consistency and layering the earth, in several applications, on the painting surface to achieve the desired color.
In The Buffalo Who Wouldn’t Die, she used earth collected in New Mexico and Arizona: brown from near Tijeras, purple from Black Canyon near Scottsdale, yellow from La Bajada Hill, white from White Sands. The green is an Arizona slate; the grey came from Santa Clara Canyon; the black is coal.
The mythological subject matter of the mural combines Navajo symbols with some from Santa Clara. Two female figures surround a “Yei” figure. All hold bows and arrows, symbolic of lightning. Butterflies and whirlwinds help the buffalo fight; these are prayer feathers and dance emblems of their journey to the supernatural world. Surrounding the five figures are weapon symbols and sand rainbows. Embracing the entire painting is a protective guardian rainbow.
It continues to be the goal of the Capitol Art Foundation to build a permanent collection of New Mexican master artworks that reflects New Mexico’s rich and diverse cultural and artistic traditions.
