A painting of two rows of figures dressed in traditional clothing dancing against a dark background. Six male figures form the back row. Each has a bare, white-painted chest and a blue-colored face, and wears a differently colored skirt with two tall feathers in his hair. A row of six women is in front. Each wears a differently colored long pleated skirt and long-sleeved shirt and has short fluffy feathers in their hair. The figures are turned to face in different directions but appear to be dancing in rhythm with one another.

Harrison Begay

Untitled (Yei Bei Chei)

About mid-1930s

Casein/tempera on paper

18⅞” W x 11⅞” H

About this artwork

In Untitled (Yei Bi Chei), Harrison Begay (Diné/Navajo) breaks through the restrictive conventions of the “flat” Studio Style in which he—along with most Native painters of his generation—was trained in the 1930s, achieving a sense of movement, rhythm, and energy.

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Gallup’s New Deal art collection consists of over 120 objects created, purchased, or donated from 1933 to 1942 through New Deal federal art programs administered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support artists during the Great Depression.

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