The “Golden Dawn” In Art
For Native American Women

By Rebekah Powers | June 2024

Tse Tsan (Golden Dawn) 1918-2006
Pablita Velarde

Pablita Velarde or Tse Tsan (Tewa for “Golden Dawn”) was one of the first women to be recognized as an American Pueblo painter. Her determination and leadership ushered in a golden era for many talented Native American women of her generation and beyond. Chimayo Trading and the Abrums family have deep and long connections to this family which make it meaningful to show the paintings of not only such a legend as Pablita, but also her daughter, Helen Hardin and one of our most popular contemporary painters, Michelle Tsosie Sisneros, Pablita’s niece. To be able to show the work of these three artists together is a creative example of the matrilineal inheritance that began with Velarde.

Born in 1918 into the Santa Clara Pueblo, talent landed her a place in Dorothy Dunn’s art class at the Santa Fe Indian School where she painted with watercolors on paper. Later, she would develop her own techniques to prepare paints from natural pigments using the same mineral pigments that her people at Santa Clara Pueblo used for paints and different colors in their pottery. The “Earth Pigment Paintings” from that series set her on her own path to recognition. She would go on to write a book of Pueblo stories, and was quoted as saying, “In my time, a woman was supposed to be a housewife, be a mother and chief cook. Those were things I wasn’t interested in.”

“Winter Hunting Scene” by Pablita Velarde, Original Gouache on paper, 18.5″ x 17.5″

Interestingly, a book written about her and her work was titled, “Woman’s Work” by Sally Hyer which would chronicle her own definition of what woman’s work could be. One example from her own life was a series of murals she was commissioned to create for The National Parks Service at Bandelier National Monument as part of the WPA Project after the Great Depression. She was commisioned to create over 70 paintings at both Bandelier and The Indian Cultural Center depicting pueblo life. Millions of people have been moved by these paintings depicting pueblo life and traditions. She would continue to flourish, win awards and be collected by museums, eventually hailed as the “greatest woman artist in the Southwest” before her death in 2006.

“Hopi Illusion” by Helen Hardin (Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh), Etching & Aquatint 2/60, 26″ x 20″

Her daughter, Helen Hardin may actually be one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pabilta’s legacy as she rose to meteoric fame and has lasting relevance through her work and life. Come into the gallery soon to glimpse the past in the work of Pablita Velarde, who brought the golden dawn of women’s art to the world, and the present in the evocative sensitivity of Helen Hardin. And then rejoice with Michelle Tsosie Sisneros in the poetic liveliness of her paintings. We are tracing the steps of history at Chimayo Trading.

“T’sikumu Pin” by Michelle Tsosie Sisneros, Acrylic and Pastel on Paper, 32” x 22”

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Come to the gallery to see where History Meets Art in Taos..

#1 Saint Francis Church Plaza
Ranchos de Taos, NM 87557

575.758.0504

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