The exhibition Early Native American Easel Art in New Mexico just opened at the Coronado Historic Site and runs through February 2016. Featured are seventeen prints of original water color paintings lent by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture's Dorothy Dunn Collection.

Among the artists on view are Vidal Casiquito, Jr. and José Rey Toledo of Jemez, Gilbert Atencio of San Ildefonso, and Pablita Velarde of Santa Clara, as well as several pieces by Zia artist, Velino Shije Herrera, who in the early 1930s painted the murals in the reconstructed Kiva at the Coronado Site. Pueblo lifeways is the exhibition's theme.

Easel painting style was popularized by pioneering instructor Dorothy Dunn who taught at the Santa Fe Indian School between 1932 and 1937. These works are characterized by their two-dimensional, flat outlined forms, derived from the abstract and geometric shapes found in rock painting, traditional painted pottery, Kiva murals, and earlier ledger drawings depicting Native cultural traditions and lifeways in New Mexico.

Dunn preferred that her students rely on their natural ability and remembrance of their cultural traditions in their works which gives us, the present-day viewers, great insight into our Southwest heritage. Visitors to the exhibition will see that these works tell a story and can compare them with the ancient Kiva paintings in both the mural room and in the painted Kiva at the site.