Veloy Vigil (1931-1997) was considered more of a Southwest artist than a Native American one, despite his mother's descent from Pueblo Indians. His father was Hispanic.
He didn’t start life with any special advantage, but he had determination. He was born in Denver during the Great Depression, and his parents worked in sugar beet fields near Greeley in Eastern Colorado. The first art he remembered seeing was in a Catholic Church. Like other successful artists, he was fortunate to have had a teacher in high school who recognized his abilities and helped him refine them.
When he graduated, he joined the Marine Corps, and later, with the help of the G.I. Bill, he attended the Denver Art Academy and the Colorado Institute of Art. Upon graduating, he secured a job in commercial art, where he created greeting cards. He worked six days a week, but on Sunday, he spent time on his paintings. He began entering competitions, and his work came to the attention of collectors when he won the Winslow Homer Award from the National Museum of Art.
The resulting popularity enabled him to relocate to Taos, where he established his own gallery and began to establish himself as one of the most important Southwest artists. Native artists and collectors admired his work, and he influenced many upcoming artists with his abstract impressionist style.
Most of his paintings were colorful, bright, and flowing, but he also became involved with prints. He created many limited editions with his printmaker sons, Michael and David.
We don’t often receive a Vigil painting to resell. Most people who have them keep them! Once in a while, we are lucky enough to get one of his prints. This is a stone lithograph created at Michael’s studio in Taos in 1986, which many say was near the height of his popularity, although he continued to paint and sell great paintings until he died. This lithograph was limited to 10 images, which is incredibly low for this type of work.
It is a wonderful image of a horse and rider, done in monochrome with Vigil’s famous flowing style.
