Tonita Peña
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Tonita Peña (born May 10, 1893 in
San Ildefonso San Ildefonso (), La Granja (), or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the Province of Segovia, in the Castile and León autonomous region of central Spain. It is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mounta ...
– died September 9, 1949 in
Santo Domingo Pueblo Kewa Pueblo (Eastern Keres , Keres: ''Díiwʾi'', Navajo: ''Tó Hájiiloh'') is a federally-recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico, in Sandoval County southwest of Santa Fe. The pueblo is recorded as the Santo D ...
) born as Quah Ah (meaning white coral beads) but also used the name Tonita Vigil Peña and María Antonia Tonita Peña. Peña was a renowned Pueblo artist, specializing in pen and ink on paper embellished with watercolor. She was a well-known and influential Native American artist and art teacher of the early 1920s and 1930s.


Early life and education

Tonita Peña was the daughter of Ascensión Vigil Peña and Natividad Peña of
San Ildefonso Pueblo San Ildefonso Pueblo (Tewa: Pʼohwhogeh Ówîngeh ’òhxʷógè ʔówîŋgè"where the water cuts through" ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States, and a federally recognized tribe, established c. 130 ...
, New Mexico but at age 12, her mother and younger sister died, as a results of complications due to the
flu Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...
. Her father was unable to care for her and she was taken to Cochití Pueblo and was brought up by her aunt, Martina Vigil Montoya, a prominent Cochití Pueblo potter. Peña attended St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe.


Career and later life

Edgar Lee Hewett Edgar Lee Hewett (November 23, 1865 – December 31, 1946) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist whose focus was the Native American communities of New Mexico and the southwestern United States. He is best known for his role in ...
, an anthropologist involved in supervising the nearby Frijoles Canyon excavations (now
Bandelier National Monument Bandelier National Monument is a United States National Monument near Los Alamos in Sandoval and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico. The monument preserves the homes and territory of the Ancestral Puebloans of a later era in the Southwest. Most ...
) was instrumental in developing the careers of several San Ildefonso “self taught” artists including Tonita Peña. Hewett purchased Peña's paintings for the Museum of New Mexico and supplied her with quality paint and paper. Peña began gaining more notoriety by the end of the 1910s selling an increasing amount to her work to collectors and the
La Fonda Hotel La Fonda on the Plaza is a historical luxury hotel, located at 100 E. San Francisco Street and Old Santa Fe Trail in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico adjacent to the Plaza. The hotel has been a member oHistoric Hotels of America the official progra ...
. Much of this early work was done of traditional subject matter, in a style inspired by historic Native American works, however her use of an artists easel and western painting mediums gained her acceptance amongst her white contemporaries in the art world. At the age of 25 her work was being shown at museums and galleries in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area. In the early 1920s Tonita did not know how much her painting sold for at the Museum of New Mexico so she wrote letters to the administrators because a local farmer was worried that she got paid too little. In the 1930s Peña was an instructor at the
Santa Fe Indian School The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...
and at the Albuquerque Indian School and the only woman painter of the San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group, which included such noted artists as Alfonso Roybal,
Julian Martinez Julián Martínez, also known as Pocano (1879–1943), was a San Ildefonso Pueblo potter,"Julian ...
, Abel Sánchez (Oqwa Pi), Crecencio Martinez, and Encarnación Peña. As children, these artists attended San Ildefonso day school which was part of the institution of the
Dawes Act of 1887 The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pre ...
, designed to indoctrinate and assimilate Native American children into mainstream American society. In 1931, Tonita Peña exhibited at the ''Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts'' which was presented at the
Grand Central Art Galleries The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmu ...
in New York City. By 1932, the
Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude ...
in New York bought Peña's painting ''Basket Dance'' for $225. This was the highest price paid up to this time for a Pueblo painting and most Native American paintings at this time were selling between $2 to $25. Peña's work was part of ''Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting'' (2019–21), a survey at the
National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Smi ...
in New York.


Death and legacy

Peña died on September 9, 1949 of cancer after unsuccessful radiation therapy on her adrenal glands. At Peña's death, all of her remaining paintings and personal effects were burned in compliance with Pueblo customs. Native arts (traditional crafts, dance, music as well as modern techniques like Peña's pen and ink with watercolor on paper) was a factor in modern Euro-Americans' changing perspective of the aesthetic and spiritual value of Native American culture and identity. Peña's artwork emphasized the role of women in everyday life and is credited with expanding the expectations of women in art by refusing to limit herself to the traditional female role of potter. Her son
Joe Herrera Joe Hilario Herrera (also known as See-Ru; born 1923–2001), 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 Pe ...
, heavily influenced his mother, became an important figure in American modernism. Peña's artwork is part of the collections at the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
in New York, the
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
in Ohio, the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Michigan, the
Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...
in Arizona, the
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
Collection in New Hampshire, the
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is Brown University's teaching and research museum. The museum has a gallery in Manning Hall on Brown's campus in Providence, Rhode Island. Its Collections Research Center is located in nearby Bristol, Rho ...
at
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, and the Peabody Museum at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. She has continued to have national art exhibitions posthumously. A crater on the planet Venus has been named after Tonita Peña.


Affecting social change

Peña did not accept the traditional roles of women in arts within Native American culture. She focused primarily on two-dimensional works on paper rather than the more socially accepted pottery and ceramic mediums of her contemporaries. Beyond the choice of what medium she used, Peña's subject matter also pushed gender boundaries. At the time she was active, only men were allowed to portray living individuals in their work. Another way Peña rejected traditional roles of women was how she approached her role as a mother. Contrary to the traditions of her tribe and America at large, she chose to have others raise some of her children, so that she could focus on completing her education and also furthering her career. During her lifetime, the U.S. government pushed the idea of assimilating Native Americans within American culture. Peña's artwork emerged as a site of resistance towards those efforts, reaffirming the importance of ceremonial dances as crucial for Puebloan cultural survival.


Critics

Critique of Peña can be found within the framework of studying "traditional" Native American art, versus "White patronage" supported art of Native American art. Artwork made by Native Americans and collected by White patrons served no traditional function for in Native American communities. Peña's critics were not only the established art world, but also her own tribe. Many of Peña's paintings depicted sacred rituals and her fellow tribespeople believed these were inappropriate subject matters to portray and share outside the tribe. Epitacio Arquero, Governor of the Pueblo and Peña's husband at the time of the most heated protests, defended the subject matter saying her paintings only depicted subject matter already visible to outsiders. Following the controversy, Peña's work changed to focus on Pueblo culture and traditions that were not sacred or private in nature.


Personal life

Tonita married three times and had six children. Peña's first marriage was in 1908 at the age of 15, arranged by village elders to Juan Rosario Chavez, however he died in 1912. She had two children with Chavez, and after he died she was able to leave the children temporarily with her aunt Martina Montoya, so she could finish her high school education. In 1913 Peña has a second arranged marriage to Felipe Herrera, who died in a mining accident in 1920. Her son Joe Hilario Herrera (with husband Felipe Herrera) was a notable painter. Her final marriage was in 1922 to Epitacio Arquero, a politician that important tribal offices at the Cochiti Pueblo, and together they had three children.


See also

*
Oasisamerica Oasisamerica is a term that was coined by Paul Kirchhoff (who also coined "Mesoamerica") and published in a 1954 article, and is used by some scholars, primarily Mexican anthropologists, for the broad cultural area defining pre-Columbian so ...
*
List of Native American artists This is a list of visual artists who are Native Americans in the United States. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 defines "Native American" as being enrolled in either federally recognized tribes or state recognized tribes or "an individual ...
*
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes ...


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pena, Tonita 1893 births 1949 deaths Painters from New Mexico Pueblo artists American women painters Native American painters People from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists Native American women artists 20th-century indigenous painters of the Americas 20th-century Native Americans 20th-century Native American women