Sybil Lansing Yazzie Baldwin (May 14, 1916 – November 25, 2002) was a Diné (Navajo) painter active in the 1930s.

About

Yazzie was a pupil of

Dorothy Dunn Dorothy Dunn Kramer (December 2, 1903 – July 5, 1992) was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School. Background Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Ch ...

at the

Santa Fe Indian School The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...

(SFIS), considered the birthplace of contemporary Native American easel painting. In annual student exhibitions of 1935, 1936, and 1937 at SFIS, critics such as

Olive Rush Olive Rush (June 10, 1873 near Fairmount, Indiana – August 20, 1966 in Santa Fe, New Mexico) was a painter, illustrator, muralist, and an important pioneer in Native American art education. Her paintings are held in a number of private coll ...

and

Frederic Douglas Frederic Huntington Douglas (born October 29, 1897 in Evergreen, Colorado; died April 23, 1956) also known as Eric Douglas. "was one of the first scholars to recognize the artistic achievements of American Indians as well as the arts of Africa an ...

described Yazzie's work as "sensitive" and "outstanding", and showing "a miniature style of great beauty". While she was still a student at SFIS in 1937, her 1935 work ''A Crowd at a Navajo N'Da-a'' in tempera on paper, was exhibited in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. One critic said that it was "not naive and childish, but a finished work of art, expert in craftsmanship, intricate in detail, and unerring in color." Yazzie's work was also exhibited at the Museum of Northern Arizona in 1970 and at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in 2009–10. Her address was given in 1968 as the Garcia Store in Chinle,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...

, but little has been recorded of her career after leaving the SFIS. Yazzie's 1935 watercolor ''Navajo Weavers'' is owned by the

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, A ...

. A gouache from 1937, ''Yeibechai'', is in the collection of the

Smith College Museum of Art The Smith College Museum of Art (abbreviated SCMA), is an art museum in Northampton, Massachusetts connected with Smith College. The museum is known for its compilation of American and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by ...

. Yazzie died on November 25, 2002, aged 86.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yazzie, Sybil 1916 births 2002 deaths 20th-century indigenous painters of the Americas 20th-century American artists 20th-century Native American artists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters People from Chinle, Arizona Painters from Arizona Navajo painters Native American women artists 20th-century Native American women