Woman Grinding Corn, Original Painting by Helen Hardin (1943-1984), Santa Clara Pueblo

Woman Grinding Corn, c. 1970 by Helen Hardin (1943-1984), Santa Clara Pueblomixed media 19" high x 18" wide, framed  Helen Hardin of Santa Clara Pueblo was one of the most fascinating, complex, and engaging figures in the American Indian art world.  Hardin was born in 1943 to Santa Clara Pueblo painter Pablita Velarde and Caucasian civil servant Herbert Hardin.  Inspired by her mother, she began creating and selling paintings as a teenager.  She went in a different direction than her mother and her mother’s peers, creating more contemporary work that depicted Native American symbols with striking geometrical patterns. Hardin's distinctive and compelling style became more fully realized in the 1970s, with a series of paintings of Katsina figures. These and her later works are immensely complex works of art that have been displayed in museums around the world.   Her personal explorations led her into the deeply affecting works of the very well-known “Woman” Series.  Much of her work is c