Mark Chee
(1914 - 1981)
It’s common in the Indian art business for people to stop in and ask for help valuing jewelry they have inherited or received as a gift. Sometimes, they want to sell it; sometimes, they just want to know more about it.
It can vary in quality and authenticity, but there are often very nice examples of work collected over the years. Some are exceptional. The work of Navajo silversmith Mark Chee is considered by most collectors and industry professionals to be the finest example of traditional Navajo silversmithing. Once in a great while, someone will bring in a piece of Chee’s jewelry.
You can feel the weight when you pick up a piece of his work. The precision of the stamp work, the perfect bezels around the stones, and the simple, clean design of every piece scream quality. When you feel a piece like this, the first reaction is to turn it over and look for the famous hallmark, a bird with the letters “CHEE” in the center. Then you know you are holding something special.
He was a talented young man with exceptional teachers. Born near Lukachukai, Arizona, just north and east of Canyon de Chelly, he was educated in a boarding school through the 11th grade. For some reason I’ve never heard of, he left and moved to Santa Fe, where he got a job polishing jewelry for $5.00 a week. His employer, Julius Gans, owned Southwest Arts and Crafts, located near the plaza, and employed silversmiths.
Gans, fondly known in Santa Fe as “Uncle Julius,” began his career in Chicago as a lawyer. However, on a trip to the Southwest, he fell in love with Santa Fe and the Native people. He gave up the big city life and opened a shop dedicated to creating and selling high-quality Native crafts.
Chee began his journey to greatness at Gans’ shop, where he learned the basics of silversmithing. He purchased some basic tools and started working for Frank Patania at the Thunderbird Shop as a benchsmith.
Patania was born in Italy in the late 1800s, and, beginning at the age of six, he apprenticed for a goldsmith, where he, like Chee, started his career polishing jewelry. At the age of 10, he and his mother immigrated to New York, where, due to child labor laws, he had difficulty finding work as a jeweler. (Imagine that!)
When he was 19, he secured a position as a jewelry designer with Goldsmith, Stern and Co., the largest Jewelry manufacturer in New York, where he worked for six years. In his 20s, he discovered turquoise and Native American jewelry and relocated to Santa Fe, where he established a jewelry business adjacent to the train station. He hired bench smiths to handcraft his designs. Again, Chee had the opportunity and ability to absorb Patania’s teaching.
He enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II, the precursor to the U.S. Air Force. When he returned to Santa Fe, he married a woman from San Juan Pueblo, where the couple lived.
He then went to work for Al Packard, an early Native American art dealer in Santa Fe, where he crafted jewelry for Packard’s Chaparral Trading Post. He remained employed there until the early 1960s, when he began making and selling his own jewelry.
Gene Waddell of Waddell Trading Company in Scottsdale told me that one of the early things he did in his family business was to drive turquoise up to Santa Fe to give to Chee. Then, he would drive back the next week to pick up the jewelry. The Waddell Family owned the Lone Mountain Turquoise Mine, so many pieces that pop up today are made with turquoise from that mine.
Chee used simple tools: a mallet, a saw, a torch, and an electric buffer. He made all of his own stamps and chisels. He even made his own hallmark stamp, the right-facing Thunderbird with his name stamped inside. He won numerous awards and continued to work through the 1970s. He passed in 1981.
We have recently received this wonderful collection of Mark Chee’s jewelry and are delighted to share it with you today.
