195
David Halbach
(American, b. 1931)
Pueblo Dance-Laqan Ceremony, 1968
Estimate: $3,000-$5,000
Sold
$2,000
Live Auction
Western Paintings and Sculpture including Contemporary Native American Art Session I
Size
20 x 30 inches
Description
David Halbach
, 1968
(American, b. 1931)
Pueblo Dance-Laqan Ceremony
watercolor
signed David Halbach and dated (lower right)
20 x 30 inches
Property being sold to benefit the Mission and Vision of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, Taos, New Mexico
Condition
Framed and matted behind glass. Dimensions: 27 x 36 1/4 inches
Signature
signed David Halbach and dated (lower right)
Provenance
Provenance:
Settler's West, Tucson, Arizona
Private Collection, acquired from the above in 2008
“There is a lot of truth in ‘Paint what you know,’” David Halbach says, and taking this advice has served him well throughout his career. Halbach studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles under Millard Sheets, and, after a stint in the Navy, went to work as a Disney animator, where he counted Lady and the Tramp among his credits. Halbach turned to teaching and easel painting and has made a particular study of Hopi ceremonies in his atmospheric watercolors that find echoes in artists as disparate as Donald Teague and Peter Moran. The Laqan, or “Squirrel” Katsina, appears in dances and can also “challenge any woman to take anything from him that she thinks worth having.” (Wright, Kachinas, p. 112)
-James D. Balestrieri