Received 01/05/2007 05:33

Press Release January 6, 2007 from The Fonseca Studio, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Acclaimed contemporary artist and Native American activist Harry Fonseca (Nisenan/Maidu/ Hawaiian/Portuguese) died early on the morning of Thursday, December 28, 2006, at the age of 60. Family and friends had surrounded Fonseca since he was hospitalized in the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in early November.

Fonseca is well known for his creation of the always-smiling, supremely self-confident “Coyote” and “Rose” over 30 years ago. Both have played a central role in Fonseca’s work and have become popular icons in the process. Fonseca’s Coyote and Rose can be found in restaurants, museums, opera houses and chamber music festivals the world over.

Throughout his life-long career as an artist, Harry Fonseca’s work went through a number of transformations but his open attitude towards new influences and sources of inspiration was constant. Fonseca was born in 1946 in Sacramento, California, and his earliest drawings, prints and paintings drew from his Maidu heritage. He was influenced by basketry designs, dance regalia, and by his participation as a traditional dancer.

The creation story of his people, as recounted by his uncle, Henry Azbill, became the source of a major 1977 work entitled “Creation Story.” This myth continued to inspire Fonseca, and he addressed it again in 1991 and 2000. Santa Fe residents George and Peggy Wessler, long time collectors of Fonseca’s work, purchased “Creation Story 2000” (6’ 1” x 17’ 3”) in 2006 and donated it to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. The painting is prominently installed on the third floor of the museum at the entrance to the museum’s permanent exhibition.

Transformation is evident in Fonseca’s paintings of Coyote and Rose, which Fonseca began in 1976 and who repeatedly jumped from his brush, including the most recent 2006 “Rose and Coyote Carmen”. The subject of these works is Coyote, both the male and female trickster. Fonseca resituated the cultural hero into contemporary settings, such as San Francisco's Mission District, the Santa Fe Opera and various tribal casinos. Through Fonseca, Coyote became a modern-day, sneaker-wearing Rousseau, holding his palette on a Parisian quay (“Rousseau Revisited,” 1986), or headdress-clad and sneakered artist (“Coyote in Front of Studio,” 1983). The Coyote character was a filter through which Fonseca examined his vision of the artist, the Indian and society.

Fonseca's interest in rock art led him to develop the “Stone Poems,” an extensive series of works exploring the imagery of petroglyphs, not only from California but also throughout the West and Southwest. The “Stone Poems” are not meant to be so much an interpretive recording of rock images but a way of self-exploration. The canvases, some as large as 6' by 12', suggest the size and scope of petroglyphic panels in situ.

Fonseca's work took a more political turn with the 1992 “Discovery of Gold and Souls in California” series. Each of these small mixed-media pieces, measuring about 15" x 11", offers subtle variations on the image of a black cross surrounded by gold leaf and partially covered with red oxide, many showing the artist’s prominent handprint. Fonseca has stated that this series "is a direct reference to the physical, emotional and spiritual genocide of the native people of California. With the rise of the mission system, and much later the discovery of gold in California, the native world was fractured, and with it, a way of life and order devastated.”

Harry Fonseca also created series that explored myth and the contemplation of spirituality. Icarus and Saint Francis of Assisi were the subject of these works. Fonseca also painted a series of ghostly human like figures that are haunting and difficult to interpret. He also completed a small series of skeletal figures that can be seen as a commentary on the AIDS crisis and human mortality.

Harry Fonseca came to be known late in his career for beautiful and meditative abstract work. Like the abstracted American landscapes revealed in central California basketry, Navajo blankets and minimalist painting, Fonseca’s abstractions were often distilled into large canvases of rhythmic, vibrating horizontal bars of color and tonal contrast. The series began in 1989 with “Navajo Blankets” and continued until his last paintings of the Grand Canyon in 2006. He also created two other abstract series that were more spontaneous and flowing through his use of dripping paint; these he titled “Seasons.” He created his last “Seasons” series in the spring of 2006.

Harry Fonseca traveled, painted and lectured extensively. He accepted invitations by museums and arts organizations to speak in Germany, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, New Zealand, Japan and Italy.

Internationally, Harry was a participating artist in the Venice Biennale in Italy in 1999, exhibiting in the Native American pavilion. Organized by the Native American Arts Alliance (also known as NA3), a non-profit collective based in Santa Fe, the exhibit "Ceremonial" included the work of Bob Haozous, Jaune Quick to See Smith, Richard Ray Whitman, Kay Walking Stick, Rick Glazer Danay, Simon Ortiz and Fonseca. This group became Indigenous Arts Action Alliance (IA3) in 2001 and Fonseca served as an advisory board member until his death.

In 2004 Harry was given the Alan Houser Memorial Award by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. The Governor gives the award to an outstanding individual who has demonstrated artistic success and community involvement.

In 2005 Fonseca was awarded the prestigious Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art from Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. In addition to a generous purchase of his most recent abstractions, the award allowed Fonseca to travel again Europe where he studied pictographic, Spanish Baroque, Renaissance, Flemish, French Impressionist and Modern art.

Harry Fonseca is survived by his daughter, Sarah Fonseca and his partner of ten years, Harry Nungesser. He is also survived by his brothers Henry, Daniel, Anthony and Fred, and by his sister, Elsie, and many nieces and nephews. He leaves behind numerous colleagues and fellow artists, a wide circle of loving friends and countless adoring patrons.

For additional information and for publishable digital images of the artist and his works please contact:

The Harry Fonseca Trust

Ms. Mariah Sacoman

505-471-2800
Digital images available by request.

Additional biographical and career info can be found on the website for the Fonseca Studio: www.harryfonseca.com