Navajo Sand Paintings by David Villasenor, September 28-November 11, 1957

David V. Villasenor was a Mexican-American artist born in Guadalajara about 1913. He spent his early years in Sonora and came to the U.S. at age 16, living among the Navajo in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There he learned the mechanics and spiritual symbolism of sand painting. His work was seen by Ernest Thompson Seton, the naturalist and artist who helped found the Boy Scouts of America. Seton asked if Villasenor would help teach other boys to design in the sand. Seton placed the young Villasenor in his College of Indian Wisdom in Santa Fe, where the young artist taught in exchange for room and board. Drafted into the Army in World War II, Villasenor was used to make medical sculptures and moulages. After the war, the Natural History Museum of New York gave him a commission for 20 sand paintings, a ritual art traditionally done on the ground with most lasting but a single day. Villasenor learned to mount them permanently and 10 of the 20 were later purchased by the Southwest Museum near downtown Los Angeles. The rest were sold to the Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas. His later work was displayed throughout the West, while two of his 12-foot, 600-pound Aztec calendars are shown permanently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and the Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Park. One of his last works was a 10-foot-high figure of Chief Sequoyah, which he gave to the Cherokee Nation. He died in July 1987 in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-07-13-me-2041-story.html