Today’s post is by Cody White, Archivist and Subject Matter Expert for Native American Related Records.
March marks Women’s History Month, set aside to honor women’s contributions in American history. Today I would like to highlight the life and career of Pablita Velarde/Tse Tsan (Santa Clara Pueblo), a prominent 20th-century Native artist. Using records from a host of collections across National Archives facilities, we are able to glimpse into this accomplished artist’s life.
Pablita Velarde was born circa 1916 at the Santa Clara Pueblo to Herman and Marianita Velarde. I write circa as her BIA student record has her birthdate as March 15, 1916; the 1929 tribal census has September 19, 1916; her 1936 employment service record card has April 8, 1916; a gallery information card saved by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board has September 19, 1918; and a 1960 tribal census has 1917. For the era, the variance in birth years is quite common.
The year 1924 brought great change to the Velarde family. According to a death certificate found in our holdings, on January 24, Marianita passed away from tuberculosis. Later that year Velarde was sent to the St. Catherine’s Indian School outside Santa Fe where she studied until 1930. That year, her application to the Santa Fe Indian School noted the reason for applying was that St. Catherine’s had closed, which doesn’t quite track with the historical record. Regardless, she was accepted into the Santa Fe Indian School at what proved to be a very fortuitous time, as shortly after Velarde’s arrival Dorothy Dunn was hired by the school and the “studio” began, a drawing and painting program that not only allowed but encouraged students to embrace traditional Native art techniques and elements. The first year Dunn taught her revolutionary and now famous art program, Velarde had both art and painting classes noted on her transcript, so she was one of the program’s first students. In an oral history recorded decades later, Velarde recalled being the only girl in the class that first year. Dunn had Velarde sit alongside her, so the boys would leave her alone.
From February to May 1934 Velarde worked for Jesse Nusbaum, then with the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe on a Civilian Works Administration (CWA) art project. Later that year she transferred to the Espanola Public High School, where longtime BIA educator Clara True was superintendent. In December she asked to return to finish at the Santa Fe Indian School and Velarde graduated on May 30, 1936, with A’s in painting and art.
Sometimes with student case files the records continue on after graduation. Interestingly, a copy of her personnel card from the United Pueblos Agency where she later worked is found here and not in the United Pueblos Agency’s administrative records, where they are more often found.
A letter requesting Velarde’s transcript from Rosary College is also present, but if she attended in 1936 it was short-lived because she shows up in the United Pueblos Agency records as a temporary laborer in 1936 and then a regular, part-time employee in 1937. As is the case with so many famous artists in their early years, she worked at various jobs while building her art career.
In a 1960 tribal census Velarde is listed with her husband Herbert and their daughter Helen, born 1943, and son Herbert, born 1944. By that time, it appears her career had taken off, as the Portland Area Office of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board compiled a file on her in 1963. The file includes an art gallery biography on her, noting how she specialized in casein tempura and oils, earth colors; “hand-ground rock and earth mixed with water and glue,” a tradition of her ancestors. The file also holds several clippings from a special edition of the Gallup Daily Independent. In one clipping we see Velarde and her daughter, whom we learn was also named Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh (Standing Spruce), a name the BIA naturally didn’t reflect in their census three years prior.
Velarde’s story within the National Archives does not end there, however; our Moving Image and Sound branch at the National Archives at College Park holds several records created much later in her life. Within Record Group 79, Records of the National Park Service, there is the film “Pablita Velarde: An Artist and Her People,” that details her life and work through her own words. Within Record Group 517, Records of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, is the video “Golden Dawn: The Pueblo Paintings of Pablita Velarde,” produced in 1994 by KNME-TV 5, the PBS station in New Mexico.
According to the National Museum of the American Indian, Pablita Velarde passed away in 2006.