We can display only a small portion of our inventory in our Internet gallery, so will rotate exhibits as often as possible. In addition to artists shown there, following are some of the other Native American painters we presently have work by: George Cochran (Cherokee), Charles Lovato (Santo Domingo), Neil David (Tewa), Robert Freeman (Luiseno/Sioux), Aaron Yava (Hopi/Navajo), Titus Biggoose (Ponca), Ray Naha (Hopi), Harrison Begay (Navajo), Robert Chee (Navajo), Jerry Ingram (Choctaw), J. D. Roybal (San Ildefonso), Paul Grant WarCloud (Sioux), Beatien Yazz (Navajo), Robert Yellowhair (Navajo). We also have limited edition prints by Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu), Jerome Tiger (Seminole) and others.

Jack Alvarez

Jack Alvarez is a third-generation Mexican-American whose cultural identity and ancestry have influenced his work.  The Mexican Fine Arts Center in Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, and University of Texas are a few institutions that have exhibited and acquired his work.  Last year the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento placed an important painting in their permanent collection.  His work has been shown throughout the West and California since the early 1970s.

Memories, 2007

Acrylic/mixed on Paper, 12 x 18 inches

Dalbert Castro
Nisenan Maidu

Born in 1934 near the ancient village of Holakcu, Auburn, Placer County, California, Dalbert Castro's childhood was spent among tribal elders, from whom he learned the traditional legends and stories of the Maidu people. His grandfather, Jim Dick, was the last Maidu chief or headman of the area, and Castro's late wife, Betty Murray Castro, was well known for her storytelling abilities and knowledge of the Maidu language and history.

It wasn't until 1973, after serving a term in the U.S. Navy, and then working in the logging industry and form firm making clay pipes, that he found himself unemployed and not knowing what to do. His wife Betty suggested he start painting.

Skeptical at first and without any instruction, he took her advice. Castro is often identified as a folk artist who creates a kind of "naive" art, but he continues to grow as an artist and interpreter of his people and has come to be well recognized. His Nisenan Maidu background is rich in the mythology and regional flavor of the Sacramento Valley and foothills, which he captures in his paintings.

He has exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Chaw'se Regional Park's invitational show at Pine Grove, Amador County, at Pacific Western Traders in Folsom, and elsewhere. He was one of eight artists featured by the California Historical Society in its special Fall 1992 issue of California History, entirely devoted to Indians of California. The Oakland Museum holds an important collection of Castro's work, which will be the subject of a future exhibition there.

Pictured above:"Nish-a-Nan Baskets" Acrylic on canvas (1992) 24" x 30"

Frank Day
Konkow Maidu (1902-1976)

Frank Day was born in Berry Creek, Butte County, California, where he was taught the language and traditions of his tribe by his father Twoboe, a headman and historian of the Konkow Maidu. After the death of his father in 1922, Day became something of a vagabond, traveling and working at a variety of jobs. Involved in a serious automobile accident in 1960, he began to paint during his convalescence. With the encouragement of anthropologist Donald Jewell, he used his paintings to record Maidu tribal lore and legends. The artist said of his paintings, "I talk my paintings, say them, sing them and then paint them.".

From 1973 and until shortly before his death in 1976 Day was a frequent exhibitor at Pacific Western Traders, and during that time began teaching dance and songs there to young people interested in learning traditional ways. This group became the Maidu Dancers and Traditionalists, well known throughout California for their faithful preservation of traditional dances and regalia.

A major exhibit and Interpretation of Day's work was mounted by the Oakland Museum of California commencing March 15,1997, with subsequent showings at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York, N.Y., Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and The Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.

Whirlwind at Bloomer Hill, 1973

Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 inches.

Mourning at Mineral Springs, 1973

Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches

Lone Arrow or Wuk- Tem- Bo-So, 1973

Oil on Canvas, 21.75 x 32.25 inches

The Burning, 1973

Oil on Canvas, 24 x 36 inches

Dancing Girl and Whirling Snake, or E-nom-oe, 1973

Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

Cremation Tree, 1964

Oil on Board, 14 x 18 inches

Chronicles of Unno, 1973

Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24 inches

"MEMORY AND IMAGINATION: THE LEGACY OF MAIDU INDIAN ARTIST FRANK DAY" published by Oakland Museum of California, 1997:

Book by Rebecca J. Dobkins, 106 pp., color plates, black & white photos.  Out of Print.  We have a limited supply at $29.95

Frank LaPena
Wintu-Nomtipom

Man Standing in Blanket

Oil on Masonite (1969)

26" x 32"

Born in San Francisco, California in 1937, Frank LaPena attended federal Indian boarding school in Stewart, Nevada. Interest in the arts began in high school and continued through college. His paintings and sculpture reflect a deep interest and appreciation of his native heritage, and he shares this with his students as professor of art and director of Native American studies at California State University, Sacramento. LaPena has exhibited his work throughout the United States for the past thirty years - including the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, the Chicago Art Institute, the San Francisco Museum, the Linder Museum, Stuttgart, the American Arts Gallery, New York, the Smithsonian's George G. Heye Center, New York, and numerous galleries. His work has been shown at Pacific Western Traders since 1973.

LaPena has also published several volumes of poetry and writes a report on contemporary California art activities for News from Native California. A dancer, singer, and practitioner of traditional culture, it was in large part through his efforts in working with Frank Day, late Maidu elder and painter, that the Maidu Dancers and Traditionalists group came into being - starting at PWT in Folsom.

Burning House and Bear

Acrylic on Canvas (2007)

22" x 24"

The Gift

Acrylic on Canvas (2007)

30" X 30"

Harry Fonseca
Nisenan Maidu

(1946-2006)

Fonseca is an artist of Portuguese, Hawaiian and Nisenan Maidu descent. He was born January 5, 1946 in Sacramento, California and was raised in nearby Bryte. He attended local schools including California State University, Sacramento, where he majored in fine art with emphasis on "primitive" styles and forms. Although Fonseca has received training as an artist he has managed to retain an extremely large amount of his own self-taught qualities.

Early works focused on California dance and creation story themes, with emphasis on the exploits of Coyote. Moving first to Albuquerque, and later to Santa Fe, where he now lives, he is described as "One of the hottest young artists In New Mexico". He has hit his stride with his Coyote paintings, capturing the spirit of the trickster that appeals to every culture." His work has been featured at leading galleries throughout the country, as well as in Europe, New Zealand and Japan. Fonseca works in a variety of media, including oils and acrylics, aquatint, pen and ink, and serigraphs.

His first one-man showing was at Pacific Western Traders in 1975, and examples of his work have been shown there regularly since that time.

Pictured above:"Star Dancer" 20 ½" x 28 ½" image; 36¼" x 28¼" framed;
Serigraph #7/50 (1979) (Sold)
(click on image for larger view)

Mary Morez
Navajo

Mary Morez was born in 1946 near Tuba City, Arizona. Stricken with polio and rheumatic fever, she underwent several childhood operations. Adopted by an Anglo couple following the death of her parents, she attended the Indian School in Phoenix, went to the University of Arizona and studied art. Among her mentors were Allen Houser and Oscar Howe. Widely traveled, broadly educated (both formally and informally), Mary Morez is a complex and articulate individual with strong views. "Everything I have learned over the years goes into my paintings: philosophy of the Navajo, the environment, religion, everything." Well enough regarded now in art circles to be the subject of academic study, she works in many media and in many styles. Her work has been exhibited in a host of nationally recognized shows and received many first awards. She has been the subject of numerous profiles in books, newspapers and magazines. She has illustrated books, record jackets, posters and health care publications for the U. S. Indian Health Service. The "Mary Morez style" has been a significant influence in the development of other contemporary Indian painters.

Pictured above:"Vision Seeker" mixed media on canvas (1997) 8" x 10"; Pictured Right:"The Sun in Summer" mixed media on rice paper (1995) Damiter 19 1/2" - 26' x 26" framed;

GAYLE ANITA

Noted wildlife artist, naturalist, illustrator, interior designer, lecturer, author, ceramist, canoeist, model, singer -- the talents of Gayle Anita seem boundless.  An artist and student of wildlife since early childhood, her paintings and drawings have a rare quality of skill and accuracy infused with their subjects' own subtle expressions and spirit.

At home in the wilderness, her work reflects an identity with nature and its wild creatures. Gayle works in multi media -- acrylic, oil, pastel, pen and ink, ceramic. Her mosaics utilizing handmade tiles and natural materials are some of her most impressive works. Calling The Flicker (pictured below)-- Inspired by the Maidu people's reverent usage of the Flicker's vivid plumage in their ceremonial regalia, so often seen at PWT events, she created this mosaic of a Maidu dancer wearing his Flicker headband in a scene by the bank of the American River near her home.  Many of the tiles were specially fashioned by her to create the atmosphere she sought.  The dancer's necklace is an inlaid replica in abalone and glass beads of a historic specimen. Associated with PWT since 1972, Gayle has not only exhibited her artistic creations,  but managed the Pacific Western Traders Gallery for several years, coordinated special projects and exhibits on and off the premises, and  remains a valued supporter.

CALLING THE FLICKER by Gayle Anita
(click on image for larger view)

Great Blue Heron at Shiba
Acrylic on canvas 2007
30 " x 40 "
$4,200.00

Limited edition print of a painting created for the cover of

Naida West's history novel of early California
28" x  20"   
$250.00

Steven Hunt

(Kwagiuthl)

The Hunt family (Kwagiuthl) is known for its fine artwork and standing in the community:  it is a part of their heritage.  Father, uncles and brother are all artists; it is their family tradition.  Steven was born into and came of age in the Kwagiuthl culture.  He says, “I started when I was 13; we have a long apprenticeship to be an artist and dancer … 13 is when we all start, it is when the male wrist can handle the knives.  We start to dance at the same time; they go together.” 

Bukwus or the "Wild Man of the Woods” is a shy nonhuman spirit who lives in an invisible house in the forest.  He eats ghost food and tries to persuade humans to eat it as well, so they will stay with him in the "unreal" world. Bukwus is a significant supernatural character associated with the spirits of people who have drowned, and whose spirits hover near him. He is linked with the underworld of the dead from which ghosts return during the season of the winter dance.

Baxwbakwalanuksiwe “Hamatsa Bird-Monster” or Crooked Beak is "The Man Eater at the North End of the World".  Certain young men are initiated into the secret society of the Hamatsa through a dramatic dance at a potlatch. Large and small Crooked Beak masks are used to represent two of the four mythical birds, who serve as attendants to Baxwbakwalanuksiwe.  The story of the taming of Baxwbakwalanuksiwe’s spirit is the story of the human struggle to tame the cannibal spirit within each of us, the wild spirit that defies peace, harmony and balance.

Salmon Rattle

Painted Yellow cedar.

Sea Eagle

Hand Drum

Elk hide over yellow cedar

20" diameter.

Moon in Eagle

Hand drum

Elk hide over yellow cedar

18" diameter.