Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Waka, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 50.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 7: Ignacio Moquino is a native of Zia. He was born in 1919. He attended the Indian School in Santa Fe, where he studies art with Miss Dorothy Dunn, later with Mrs. Montaoya. Because of his father's death, he left school to look after his family, working at shoemaking part of the time. It was then that he began his art career, designing and painting costumes for different tribal ceremonies. Hew as much interested in ancient Pueblo legends and listened attentively to the stories of long ago that his grandmother told him. He used many incidents of these stories and legends in his paintings; he also sought inspiration in the old Zia pottery designs. He painted a mural, "Harvest" for the Santa Fe Indian School, and a beautiful "Crow Dance" for the Federal Building on Treasure Island for the San Francisco World's Fair in 1938. His paintings are in the Department of Interior, Washington, D.C.: Hilton Hotel, Albuquerque, and many collections in the United Sates and abroad. Ignacio Moquino took a teacher's training course and taught for one year. Then he went into the army from which he was discharged in 1946. He now lives in San Juan, where he manages to find time for a certain amount of creative work. "Hunting Deer" was painted before the war. In many ways, it is an amazing picture. It represents two young Indians riding at great speed and in the act of shooting two deer. It is a piece of anecdotal pictorial art and yet the pottery design of his tribe is very much in evidence. It is so thoroughly Zia that it would identify the tribe of the painter at first glance. It is sharply incised in outline, and, in color, the accent is on the horsemen rather than the deer. The action of horses, men and deer is rendered with utmost confidence. What a wonderful visual memory these Indian artists have! (Collection, University of Oklahoma)