Enchanted Forest
Enchanted Forest
Artist
Pop Chalee (Merina Lujan Hopkins)
(Taos Pueblo, 1906 - 1993)
Dateca. 1950
MediumGouache on paper
Dimensions20 × 25 in. (50.8 × 63.5 cm)
Framed: 31 × 37 in.
Framed: 31 × 37 in.
ClassificationsWatercolor
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.52
Accession number
2020.52
On View
On viewLabel TextPop Chalee, an artist from the Taos Pueblo who decided to pursue art professionally around age 30, achieved national recognition for her mystical forest and animal scenes. She enrolled at the Santa Fe Indian School, where students were encouraged to look to nineteenth-century Plains ledger drawings and ancient Pueblo pottery designs for inspiration. Chalee embraced the flatness and simplified forms of these sources while creating a radical new aesthetic. Her unconventional approach to space and imaginative color choices in works such as Enchanted Forest produce a dreamy, fantastical atmosphere.
