"Celestial #1" (Taiyin Snowflower), from the Dartmouth Pow-Wow Suite

Mateo Romero, Cochiti Pueblo / American, born 1966
Cochiti Pueblo (Kotyete)
Southwest

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2009

Photo transfer and acrylic paint on panel

Panel: 60 × 40 in. (152.4 × 101.6 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund

2010.53.2

Geography

Place Made: Cochití Pueblo, United States, North America

Period

21st century

Object Name

Painting

Research Area

Native American

Painting

Native American: Southwest

Not on view

Inscriptions

Signed, upper right, on canvas: Mateo Romero

Label

Mateo Romero’s overpainted photograph celebrates a modern Native woman who dances not for tourists, but for her own and other Native lives, in a modern Indian context at the Dartmouth Pow-Wow.

It was with tremendous joy and energy that we created these portraits of current Dartmouth students and alumni. . . . Photographic images were selected, enlarged, transferred to panel, and painted on with acrylic. . . . There is a palpable tension between figure and ground . . . portraiture, and the nostalgic quality of action painting. . . . In the Tewa Pueblos . . . dancers entering the houses of their relatives say . . . We Dance for Life. . . . My hope is that the works transcend the limits of ethnic culture and address the audience on a human level. —Mateo Romero

From the 2019 exhibition Portrait of the Artist as an Indian / Portrait of the Indian as an Artist, guest curated by Rayna Green

Course History

NAS 30.1, ARTH 17, Modern Native American Art History, Joyce Szabo, Summer 2013

Exhibition History

Mateo Romero: The Dartmouth Pow-Wow Suite, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 27, 2011-January 15, 2012.

Portrait of the Artist as an Indian / Portrait of the Indian as an Artist, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-July 15, 2019.

Provenance

Ten Portraits Comissioned by the Hood Museum of Art for the exhibition, Native American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, 2009.

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