21 Facts About Helen Hardin

Helen Hardin started making and selling paintings, participated in the University of Arizona's Southwest Indian Art Project and was featured in Seventeen magazine, all before she was 18 years of age.

Helen Hardin created contemporary works of art with geometric patterns based upon Native American symbols and motifs, like corn, katsinas, and chiefs.

Helen Hardin was born on May 28,1943, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of Pablita Velarde, Santa Clara Pueblo artist, and Herbert Hardin, a European-American former police officer and Chief of Public Safety.

Helen Hardin was named Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh at a naming ceremony at the Santa Clara Pueblo about a month after she was born.

Helen Hardin's works were sold when she was nine with her mother's at Gallup ceremonial events.

Helen Hardin studied drafting at Albuquerque's St Pius X High School, a parochial Catholic school.

Helen Hardin considered her own work to be non-traditional, yet she was influenced by native pictographs, petroglyphs and pottery designs and the works of her teacher Joe Herrera, who was a Cubist from the Cochiti Pueblo.

Helen Hardin had to sneak opportunities to paint because both her boyfriend and her mother disapproved She went to Bogota, Colombia in 1968 as a respite from the abusive relationship with Terrazas and an unhealthy relationship with her mother.

Helen Hardin signed her paintings in her Indian name, Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh, or Little Standing Spruce, to separate herself from her celebrated mother's reputation.

Helen Hardin was a studio artist, who from the 1960s to mid 1970s lectured and exhibited paintings at Albuquerque's Enchanted Mesa Gallery.

Helen Hardin was influenced by her spirituality and the protective, supportive "angels" in her life.

Up to 26 layers of paint - including ink washes, acrylics, airbrush and varnish - were applied to create her works; Helen Hardin painted tiny dots called stipples; spattered paint with a toothbrush, like Anasazi pottery; and applied transparent washes.

In 1964 Helen Hardin made the painting Medicine Talk for her first major solo exhibition at Enchanted Mesa.

Helen Hardin was said to have brought a "new look" to Native American art by New Mexico Magazine.

Helen Hardin was filmed in 1976 for a series on American Indian artists for Public Broadcasting System, the only woman painter included.

At her death at the age of 41, Helen Hardin was recognized as one of the finest and most innovative Indian artists of her generation.

Helen Hardin was among the first modern Indian painters to combine her non-Indian art materials and techniques with an Indian sensibility, merging past and present in a new way.

Helen Hardin was commissioned to create children's book illustrations for Clarke Industries and design coins for Franklin Mint's History of the American Indian series.

Helen Hardin's work was part of Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting, a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center.

Helen Hardin was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1981 and died in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 9,1984.

Helen Hardin received honors for her work at the Heard Museum, Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition, Philbrook Art Center, the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial at Gallup, New Mexico, and the Santa Fe Indian Market.