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Joe Hilario Herrera (also known as See-Ru; 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 Peña, and had trained at the Santa Fe Indian School.

Early life and education

Joe Hilario Herrera was born on May 17, 1923, in Cochiti, New Mexico. His father Felipe Herrera, was from Cochiti, where he grew up. While his mother, Tonita Peña was from San Ildefonso. Herrera inherited rich artistic traditions from both of his parents. His early interest in painting was stimulated by watching his mother's husband, Julian Martinez paint, but above all through the strong influence of his mother, who was the most prominent Native American female painter of her generation. Herrera swatted flies away from his mother's paint dishes while she worked, and in return she gave him paint with which he began to experiment at the age of five.

Like many other Pueblo artists from the Southwest at the time, Herrera trained at the Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School, which had been founded by Dorothy Dunn, but was by this time directed by the San Juan Pueblo artist Geronima Montoya. His early art was in the flat watercolor style, typical of the School's output.

From 1941 to 1945, served in the United States Army during World War II and was stationed in the Caribbean. He also worked at the Laboratory of Anthropology. He completed a bachelor's degree in art education at the University of New Mexico, on the G.I. Bill.

Teaching

After graduation he taught art classes in the Albuquerque Public Schools, and later taught for the United States Department of Education at Indian Schools across the state of New Mexico. His work had influenced painter Helen Hardin, who had served as one of his students.

Art work

Influenced by his mother's art style and by the style of the Studio School, Herrera initially produced paintings of Pueblo dancers in flat, opaque watercolors. Like many other artists from the school, including his mother, Herrera worked painting murals, which was a popular form of patronage for Native art in the 1930s and 1940s.

However, he was one of the first Studio School-trained Native American artists to move away from representational art into more abstract expression. The artist Raymond Johnson was an influential figure in this shift after Herrera studied under him at the University of New Mexico between 1950 and 1953. In the 1950s, Herrera gained international recognition after an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

In 1954, the French government honored Herrera with the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (English: Order of Academic Palms) award.

Of his own work, Herrera said:

Klee sought to see the wonders of nature through the eyes of aborigines and children, and attempted to combine their freshness of vision with his own cultivated knowledge, I attempted the reverse, bringing the innovations and intellectual constructs of modern art to bear on traditional Pueblo imagery.

— Joe Herrera, unpublished interview, on file at the Native American Artists Resource Collection, Heard Museum (see Berlo and Phillips, p. 223)

Herrera's work has been described as "coolly decorative", in contrast with his mother's "warmly natural" art. His synthesis of traditional Pueblo art, Studio School training, and engagement with modernism and abstract styles was influential on an entire generation of artists.

Politics, civil service, and late paintings

From 1953 to 1967, Herrera served as secretary on the All Indian Pueblo Council, before they had an office. He was also a member of the National Congress of American Indians. He testified before the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., in support of legislation for Native American economic development. In 1968, Herrera was hired to lead a New Mexico State Employment Commission and help Native Americans find jobs.

For seven years he worked as a newscaster at KTRC radio station in Santa Fe.

After retiring from his public service work in 1983, he returned to painting. By the early 1990s, his eyesight was poor and he stopped painting.

Death and legacy

Herrera died on September 26, 2001, from diabetes complications in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His funeral service was at Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, and he is buried in Santa Fe National Cemetery.

Herrera's work can be found in many public museum collections including the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Gilcrease Museum; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the National Museum of the American Indian; the Museum of Northern Arizona; among others.

In 2018, his art was featured alongside his mother's in the exhibition "Generations in Modern Pueblo Painting: The Art of Tonita Peña and Joe Herrera" (2018) at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma. The exhibit highlighted the seminal influence both artists had on subsequent generations of painters and how both mother and son forged new paths which grew out of but also broke from tradition. It was the first significant exhibition of Peña's work since the 1930s, and the premiere of many of Herrera's later works. Curator W. Jackson Rushing III said of the exhibition, "It is my contention that Peña and Herrera were key figures in the development of modern art in the United States and that there is no satisfying explanation for their exclusion from surveys on the subject. On the contrary, for several reasons, a critical examination of their aesthetic achievements and legacy reshapes our understanding of American modernism."

Herrera's work was part of Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (2019–2021), a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian, and George Gustav Heye Center.

See also

• Oasisamerica
• List of Native American artists
• Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Modernism

References

1. ^ Wyckoff, Lydia L., ed. (1996). Visions and Voices: Native American Painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art. Philbrook Museum of Art. Philbrook Museum of Art. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-86659-013-6.
2. ^ Berlo, Janet C.; Phillips, Ruth B. (1998). Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 219–223.
3. ^ Dawdy, Doris Ostrander; King, Jeanne Snodgrass (1966). The Excavation of Hawikuh by Frederick Webb Hodge: Report of the Hendricks-Hodge Expedition, 1917-1923. Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. p. 71.
4. Gray, Samuel L. (1990). Tonita Peña: Quah Ah, 1893-1949. Avanyu Pub. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-936755-17-5.
5. Sando, Joe S. (1998). Pueblo Profiles: Cultural Identity Through Centuries of Change. Clear Light Publishers. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-940666-39-9.
6. ^ Marter, Joan M. (2011). The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford University Press. p. 444. ISBN 978-0-19-533579-8.
7. ^ Lee, Morgan (5 October 2001). "Cochiti Painter, Advocate Dies at 80". Newspapers.com. Albuquerque Journal. p. 19. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
8. "Joe H Herrera in the New Mexico, U.S., World War II Records, 1941-1945". Ancestry.com. New Mexico Commission of Public Records, State Records Center and Archives; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Subsubseries: Military Discharges; Box Number: 16594; Box Title: Military Discharges Herrera-Histia.
9. ^ "Joe Herrera Paintings - Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe". www.adobegallery.com. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
10. ^ "Fine Art | Native American Paintings | Native American Artwork | Cochiti Pueblo | Joe Herrera | Original Painting of a Ram Dancer - Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe". www.adobegallery.com. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
11. ^ "Deaths Elsewhere". Newspapers.com. Dayton Daily News. 29 September 2001. p. 15. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
12. "Native American: A668 Joe Herrera". www.bischoffsgallery.com. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
13. "Obituary: Joe Hilario Herrera, 80". Newspapers.com. The Atlanta Constitution. 29 September 2001. p. 149. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
14. "Joe Hilario Herrera". OU. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
15. "Zuni Ceremonial Dancer / Joe Hilario Herrera". Gilcrease Museum. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
16. "Buffalo Dancer". Indianapolis Museum of Art Online Collection. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
17. "Olden Time Butterfly Dance". National Museum of the American Indian. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
18. "Art Collection". Museum of Northern Arizona. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
19. ^ "'Generations in Modern Pueblo Painting' showcases art by mother and son Tonita Peña and Joe Herrera at Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art". Oklahoman.com. 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
20. "Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting". National Museum of the American Indian. Retrieved 7 March 2021.

• 1923 births
• 2001 deaths
• 20th-century American painters
• American male painters
• Painters from New Mexico
• Artists from New Mexico
• People from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico
• Pueblo artists
• American abstract painters
• University of New Mexico alumni
• Native American painters
• Native American male artists
• 20th-century Native American artists
• Recipients of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques
• 20th-century American male artists
• San Ildefonso Pueblo people