Description:
Watercolor on Paper. Signed l.r.: Yel-Ha-Yah, Stamped PLANCHE 76.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 12: The "Four Corners", where four states meet, is one of the most remote sections in all America. Near there at a place called Red Rock, in the northeast corner of Arizona, Charlie Lee arrived on a blustery day in 1926. There he "used up" his infancy, so he tells us in his colorful speech. His boyhood was occupied in typical Navajo manner, herding sheep and cattle, and other humble everyday chores, about his home. But during the long, uneventful days he feasted his eyes on the stern beauty of the desert landscape as elusive and changeable as a dream, and he filled his mind with the bewitching poetic lore of his mystic race. Like all good little American boys, he began his schooling at six years of age when he was introduced for the first time to that strange language called English. Later he moved to Shiprock for some years study at the Agriculture High School. They, in 1945, he went to the Santa Fe Indian School. He is young and a comparative newcomer among Indian artists. But even while a student, his work has been fairly widely exhibited and admired. The paintings shown here are among his very finest. His "Picking Corn Maiden" is very colorful. Done on violet paper, it suggests a dusty sky over a corn field,(four hills of corn and two melons suffice to give the impression of a whole field of corn and a pumpkin patch). The young Navajo miss is picking roasting ears most carefully. She is dressed in a gay red velvet jacket and a flouncy yellow skirt, and on her feet, she wears the peculiar Mongolian-like Navajo shoes. The composition is unorthodox, but adequate. He likes best of all to paint boys and horses. Most frequently they are accompanied by a dog, most lovingly portrayed. (Collection, Oscar Brousse Jacobson)