Tony Abeyta Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1965 -

Considered to be one of the finest contemporary painters today, artist Tony Abeyta, Navajo painter and jewelry designer, has been honored as a living treasure as part of the 2012 Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival-artists specially invited by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Educated at Santa Fe's Institute of American Indian Art, the Maryland Institute's College of Art in Baltimore, and then overseas in Southern France and Florence, Italy, Tony Abeyta, a graduate of the Maryland Institute, returned to school taking postgraduate classes in art and filmmaking at the Chicago Art Institute on a Ford Foundation scholarship.

Abeyta uses the bold colors representative of his homeland and finds his medium of painting involving sand, acrylic, and oil paint, gold leafing and encaustic wax and collage elements to achieve the desired results of his work.

Abeyta works with vast fields of color and texture one might find in Indian crosses, early Navajo (Diné) blanket designs, as well as prehistoric sensibilities of Indian design and earth toned color. Abeyta's work has predominantly focused on Native American deities such as the Navajo (Diné) Yei-be-chai and Pueblo Kachinas. He shows the importance of these images in Native American religion and culture without literally depicting them.

Abeyta makes a living from his artwork, which also deals in American Indian images. Early recognition has allowed him to devote his time to what he loves best. Abeyta is an excellent example of the contemporary Southwestern Indian artist whose struggles for success have differed dramatically from predecessors.