ADD SOME SOUTHWESTERN STYLE TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS WITH LIMITED-EDITION ARTWORK BY LOUIE EWING.

In the 1940s, the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe published several series of silkscreen prints by Santa Fe artist Louie Ewing.  Each series contained 6 silkscreen prints and each print was placed in a brown paper folder with the title on the front and a description and explanation of the article of the silkscreen print. This series was published in 1942-43 in an edition of 500 copies, exclusively for “Members of the Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, New Mexico.” This particular image depicts a Navajo silver ghato.

Louis H Ewing 1908-1983 WPA New Mexico/Idaho. In 1938, Federal Arts Project of New Mexico funded a Portfolio of Spanish Colonial Design in New Mexico; and with this, he began a long series of book publications in which his original silk screens were tipped into the books. Although Ewing was not the first produce silk screens for books, he was the first in the Southwest and it was an original innovation for him. In 1939, Kenneth Chapman, curator of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, collaborated with Russell Vernon Hunter in a WPA project for in which Ewing made silkscreen prints from his original paintings of fifteen Navajo blankets. The fifteen silk screens were each printed 200 times and the resulting portfolios were distributed to libraries, universities and museums. He joined the WPA's Federal Art Project working under Russell Vernon Hunter. In the late 1930s the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Federal Art Project sent Russell a group of materials on the process of silk screening with encouragement to spread the technique in the Southwest. Russell selected Louie Ewing as the person to master the technique and show it to others. Ewing headed the WPA printmaking workshop in Santa Fe. Ewing had set up a silk screening shop and was producing prints. Silk screening became a major artistic expression in the Southwest. Louie Ewing is viewed by some to be one of the first artists in the United States to "work creatively with serigraphy" on posters and book illustrations. He also did many landscape paintings of New Mexico.

• artist: Louie H. Ewing (American, 1908-1983)
• hallmarks: Louis Ewing (signed in pencil)
• vintage condition
• evidence of age
• signed in pencil by artist
• style: Art-1316