Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Tsu-Ye-Mu, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 61.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, pp. 9-10: Everybody in the village seems to be an artist. Tse-Ye-Mu is another son of San Ildefonso who has brought renown to the ancient pueblo. He is a nephew of the famous potter, Maria Martinez. His son, Albert Vigil, shows talent and may carry on with art in the family tradition. Tse-Ye-Mu'[s production has not been as prolific as that of some other Indian artists; his paintings are not always showy but they make a strong appeal to the discriminating connoisseur. They are mostly conventionalized patterns, light, delicate, aloof, and very stately. His "Harvest Dance" is an excellent example of his style. The four dance figures with the accompanying two musicians constitute the pictorial part of the composition. The picture is framed at top and bottom by abstract decorations symbolic of the natural phenomena. However, the human figures are sufficiently stylized to harmonize with the purely decorative symbols. Unless kept under strict control there is a certain danger in such a combination of the pictorial and the decorative. Tse-Ye-Mu skirts this danger very well. What our Indian friends try to convey when they use this combination of dual subjects is the relationship between the physical and the spiritual world, as their sacred dances convey that relationship. Tse-Ye-Mu was born in 1902 and like most of the young men of the neighbourhood, went to the Santa Fe School. Of late years, Tse-Ye-Mu has done few watercolors. He has worked with Disney in Hollywood for some years, making many sketches for Bambi and other animals of the Disney fairyland. He has returned to his people and is now available as a muralist. The Indian School in Santa Fe has some of his murals, others are in La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, and in private collections. (Collection, University of Oklahoma) [Jacobson gives Native American Name as "Spruce Falling in Winter" and hyphenates the name Tse-Ye-Mu. In Pueblo Indian Painting, Alexander gives Native American Name as "Falling in Water" and does not hyphenate name Tse Ye Mu.] Map references: San Ildefonso Pueblo (N.M.)