Percy Tsisete Sandy | |
|---|---|
Kai-Sa (Red Moon) | |
 | |
| Born | 1918 Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico |
| Died | 1974 |
| Nationality | Zuni, American |
| Known for | gouache watercolor painting |
| Spouse | Peggy Mirabel |
Percy Tsisete Sandy, (born 1918) was a Zuni artist. His native name was Kai-Sa (Red Moon); he is also known as Percy Sandy Tsisete. His paintings were signed with the name Kai-Sa. [1]
Kai-Sa was born on the Zuni Pueblo in Northern New Mexico. He began painting in his youth while attending Zuni Day School. [1] Later he enrolled in art programs in Albuquerque, and at the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, [2] and the Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe. [3]
Kai-Sa married Peggy Mirabel. The two moved to Taos as Mirabel was from Taos Pueblo. [3] They had three sons and a daughter. [1]
After moving to Taos, Kai-Sa met Helene Wurlitzer, a philanthropist who supported the work of numerous artists in New Mexico. After having his family over for dinner, she made a commitment to fund his art practice by establishing a credit account for him at a local art supply store. In 1955 he received a fellowship grant from Wurlitzer's foundation. [4]
The primary subject matter of his paintings were ceremonial rituals within Native communities, including Zuni, Taos, Apache and Navajo cultures. [3] He is known for his watercolor and gouache paintings of Kachina entities and dancers, and for his murals at the La Fonda Hotel in Taos, New Mexico, [3] [5] and at the Black Rock School and Black Rock Hospital in New Mexico. [1]
Kai-Sa described his intentions as an artist in 1940, "As an Indian artist, I hope to be instrumental in artistically and authentically depicting the customs of my people." [1] His works revealing ceremonial rituals of the Zuni (of which he was a tribal member), caused friction among members of the pueblo. [3]
Kai-Sa was seriously injured in an accident in 1959, which periodically impaired his ability to paint, although he continued to exhibit his work. [1]
Their work is held in the permanent collections of the Delaware Art Museum, [3] the Gilcrease Museum, [5] the Smithsonian Museum [6] the Minneapolis Institute of Art. [7] Other collections include the Heard Museum, the Museum of New Mexico, the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board the United Pueblo Agency of New Mexico, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. [8]
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Chacón to act as fortified plaza and trading outpost for the neighboring Native American Taos Pueblo and Hispano communities, including Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, El Prado, and Arroyo Seco. The town was incorporated in 1934. As of the 2010 census, its population was 5,716.
The Taos art colony was an art colony founded in Taos, New Mexico, by artists attracted by the culture of the Taos Pueblo and northern New Mexico. The history of Hispanic craftsmanship in furniture, tin work, and other mediums also played a role in creating a multicultural tradition of art in the area.
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He is best known for his paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico and the American Southwest. His son, Charles Berninghaus (1905–1988), was also a Taos artist.
The Zuni are Native American Pueblo peoples native to the Zuni River valley. The Zuni people today are federally recognized as the Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico, and most live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in western New Mexico, United States. The Pueblo of Zuni is 55 km (34 mi) south of Gallup, New Mexico. The Zuni tribe lived in multi level adobe houses. In addition to the reservation, the tribe owns trust lands in Catron County, New Mexico, and Apache County, Arizona. The Zuni call their homeland Halona Idiwan’a or Middle Place. The word Zuni is believed to derive from the Western Keres language (Acoma) word sɨ̂‧ni, or a cognate thereof.
Joseph Henry Sharp was an American painter and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which he is considered the "Spiritual Father". Sharp was one of the earliest European-American artists to visit Taos, New Mexico, which he saw in 1893 with artist John Hauser. He painted American Indian portraits and cultural life, as well as Western landscapes. President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned him to paint the portraits of 200 Native American warriors who survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. While working on this project, Sharp lived on land of the Crow Agency, Montana, where he built Absarokee Hut in 1905. Boosted by his sale of 80 paintings to Phoebe Hearst, Sharp quit teaching and began to paint full-time.
Maria Margarita "Margaret" Tafoya was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters. She was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Julián Martínez, also known as Pocano (1879–1943), was a San Ildefonso Pueblo potter, painter, and the patriarch of a family of Native American ceramic artists in the United States.
The Taos Society of Artists was an organization of visual arts founded in Taos, New Mexico. Established in 1915, it was disbanded in 1927. The Society was essentially a commercial cooperative, as opposed to a stylistic collective, and its foundation contributed to the development of the tiny Taos art colony into an international art center.
Pop Chalee, also known as Merina Lujan, was an American painter, muralist, performer, and singer. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
Harrison Begay, also known as Haashké yah Níyá was a renowned Diné (Navajo) painter, printmaker, and illustrator. Begay specialized in watercolors, gouache, and silkscreen prints. At the time of his death in 2012, he was the last living, former student of Dorothy Dunn and Geronima C. Montoya at the Santa Fe Indian School. His work has won multiple awards and is exhibited in museums and private collections worldwide and he was among the most famous Diné artists of his generation.
Art of the American Southwest is the visual arts of the Southwestern United States. This region encompasses Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. These arts include architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, and other media, ranging from the ancient past to the contemporary arts of the present day.
Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico is an artist residency program in the artists' colony of Taos, New Mexico. The Foundation, which offers prize fellowships to painters, poets, sculptors, writers, playwrights, composers, photographers and filmmakers, was established in 1954 and incorporated as a private nonprofit in 1958. The Foundation was conceived, funded, and organized by Helene Billing Wurlitzer (1874-1963), a philanthropist from Cincinnati who relocated to Taos in the early 1940s.
Eva Mirabal, also known as Eah-Ha-Wa (1920–1968) was a Native American painter, muralist, illustrator, and cartoonist from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Her primary medium was gouache, a type of watercolor.
Joe Hilario Herrera, was an American Pueblo painter, teacher, radio newscaster, politician, and a Pueblo activist; from a mixed Cochiti and San Ildefonso background. He was the son of the artist Tonita Peña, and had trained at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Romando Vigil, also known as Tse Ye Mu was a Native American self-taught painter and a leader in the San Ildefonso school. He briefly worked for Walt Disney Studios as a painter and illustrator in the 1950s.
Waldo Mootzka (1903–1940) was a Hopi watercolor artist.
Gilbert Benjamin Atencio, also called Wah Peen, was a San Ildefonso Pueblo painter, potter, medical Illustrator, and politician.
Helene Valeska Billing Wurlitzer (1874–1963) was notable for her philanthropy in the arts in both Ohio and New Mexico. Helene was born in Salt Lake City to German immigrant Gustav Billing (1840-1890) and Henriette Schneider Billing (1849-1939), a Cincinnati physician’s daughter. Helene’s parents were in Utah establishing a mining smelter funded by Ohio investors. She was the first of two children; her sister being born in 1888.
Otis Polelonema (1902–1981), was a Hopi painter, illustrator, weaver, song composer, and educator. He lived in Shongopovi most of his life. He also worked as a WPA artist in the mural division. His native name in the Hopi language is Lomadamocvia which translates to "springtime".
DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo (1992–2021) was an American painter from New Mexico.
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