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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Tsosie

DATE TYPED 03/03/05 HB

SHORT TITLE Native American New Deal Art Day

SB SJM 90

ANALYST Weber

APPROPRIATION

Appropriation Contained Estimated Additional Impact Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY05

FY06

FY05

FY06

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Indian Affairs

No Response Received From

Cultural Affairs Department

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Joint Memorial 90 (SJM 90) designates March 7, 2005 as “Native American New

Deal Art Day” at the legislature. The measure does the following:

Recognize Pablita Velarde and Harrison Begaye, the two living representatives of

the group of New Deal artists.

Honor the memory of New Mexico’s other Native American New Deal artists

through their families.

Commemorate and celebrate the work of the Native American New Deal artists as

among the greatest accomplishments of New Mexico.

That the legislature celebrate the lives and contributions of those artists

and preserve their accomplishments to share with future generations.

Senate Joint Memorial 90 -- Page 2

Significant Issues

Indian Affairs offers the following.

In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a program referred to as the New

Deal, to help pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The New Deal focused primarily

on helping farmers, industry, investors, and the desperately needy, and also encouraged

and supported the arts by providing work for artists, writers, actors and musicians

through a program called the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The purpose of the WPA was to create jobs through building highways, bridges, parks,

schools, public works of art and other projects. The WPA provided an opportunity for

many of New Mexico’s Native American artists to create artwork for public buildings

throughout New Mexico. Among the best-known New Deal Native American artists are

Pablita Velarde and Harrison Begaye.

Pablita Velarde, New Mexico's only living New Deal woman artist, was born in 1918 at

Santa Clara Pueblo. She attended St. Catherine’s Indian School as a child. She went on to

the Santa Fe Indian School where she studied with other Native American artists who

also worked in the New Deal Federal Art Project. Her major collection of New Deal art

can be found at Bandelier National Monument where she was hired by the National Park

Service to paint renderings of pueblo daily life. In addition, it is believed that her New

Deal artwork was also sent to other U.S. Indian Service locations though the sites are un-

known.

Harrison Begay, Navajo, was born on November 15, 1917, at White Cone, Arizona. In

1934, at age 17, he entered the Santa Fe Indian School where he studied with other Na-

tive American artists. Begaye served as a muralist in the WPA. The location of many of

his New Deal murals is unknown, however, beginning in 1939 Begay did help paint the

famous murals found at Maisel's Trading Post in Albuquerque. After serving three years

in the U.S. Army in Europe and Iceland during World War II, he returned to civilian life

and currently works as a full-time painter.

Although many of paintings created by New Deal Native American artists still exist in

museums and public buildings today, some have been painted over, destroyed, or stolen

during the course of the past 60 years.

MW/lg