Quah Ah, Tonita Vigil Peña, María Antonia Tonita Peña
Quah Ah, Tonita Vigil Peña, María Antonia Tonita Peña;Tonita Peña;Quah Ah, Tonita Vigil Pena, Maria Antonia Tonita Pena;Tonita Pena
Place: San Ildefonso Pueblo
Born: 1893
Death: 1949
Biography:
Tonita Peña, also known as Quah Ah, Tonita Vigil Peña, and María Antonia Tonita Peña, was a renowned Pueblo artist born in San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico in 1893. She specialized in pen and ink on paper embellished with watercolor, and was a well-known and influential Native American artist and art teacher of the early 1920s and 1930s. Peña was the first Pueblo Indian easel painter, and broke away from the stereotype of only men doing narrative painting. She was encouraged by New Mexico archeologist and Museum Director Edgar Hewitt and painter Kenneth Chapman, and executed several wall paintings in New Mexico. Peña passed away in Kewa Pueblo, New Mexico in 1949.
