IRA YEAGER
PORTRAITS OF NOBILITY
IRA YEAGER PORTRAITS OF NOBILITY
PAINTINGS FROM A SIXTY YEAR CAREER
LewAllenGalleries Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Indian Portrait with Headdress, 2013 - 2014, oil and acrylic on canvas, 66 x 66 in
IRA YEAGER: PORTRAITS OF NOBILITY Ira Yeager is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most significant and widely collected painters. In his nearly sixty year career, he has mastered a distinct style and subject matter, from landscape paintings inspired by his many travels around the globe and the Northern California vineyards he now calls home, to the vistas of his beloved New Mexico. Enamored with the 18th century’s beauty and history, his abstract expressionist figures and monumental Indian portraits often evoke a musicality of the past.
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both history and imagination, these figures suggest a lost grandeur and solemn historical significance akin to the late 19th and early 20th century photographers Edward S. Curtis, whose prodigious portrayal of Native people were both scholarly and artistic, and continue to be compelling today. Yeager’s imagery of Native people transcends portraiture with keen particularity and universal resonance. They are unsentimental — celebratory yet moving in their gravitas. After studying at California College of Arts and Crafts and San Francisco School of Fine Arts, Yeager went on to develop his technique in Italy and then as a young artist in Santa Fe in the 1960s before travelling the world and eventually settling into his studios in Napa and Sonoma.
His unique voice resonates with the California modernist composition aesthetic, expressionistic representation, and bold color that were instilled in him while training with artists such as Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, and Primo Conti. Yeager’s work has a particular play of line and technical bravura that capture spontaneity within his layering of paint and mixed media, be it a luminous, crackling sunset over a Napa vineyard or the thickly textured headdress of an Indian chief. His boldness of scale, direct composition and unusual surface materials suggest the influence of artists such as Jay de Feo, Manuel Neri, and Bruce Connor. In New Mexico, he began a creative dialog that persists today in his series of Indian portraits. These iconic, monumental portraits, often with ceremonial adornment and symbolic imagery are among his most noteworthy works. Inspired by 2
Indian Portrait with Eagle Headdress: Homage to Hermes, 2015, egg tempera on panel, 60 x 60 in
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Indian Portrait, 2015, mixed media, 36 x 36 in
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Indian Portrait, 2014, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in
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Indian Portrait, 2014, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in
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Indian Portrait, 2015, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in
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Indian Portrait, 1989, mixed media, 48 x 48 in
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Indian Portrait, 1967, mixed media, 49 x 25 in
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Papoose, 1850, 2010, oil, acrylic and gesso on canvas, 49 x 25 in
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Indian Portrait, Paris 1885, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 in
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Indian Portrait, 1840, 2010, oil and acrylic on panel, 16 x 13 in
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Untitled, 1988, mixed media, 36 x 24 in
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Indian Portrait, 1840, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 in
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Indian Portrait 1849, oil and acrylic on wood panel, 24 in round
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Indian Portrait, Cheyenne, 1840, 2010, oil and acrylic on wood panel, 28 1/2 x 18 1/2 in
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Indian Portrait 1840, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 32.5 x 26 in
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Indian (Working Drawing), 2003, mixed media on paper, 24 x 32 in
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Cowboy, 1968, mixed media, 31 x 31 in
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Indian V, 1974, mixed media, 36 x 24 in
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Indian VII, 1974, mixed media, 36 x 30 in
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Indian III, 1974, mixed media, 36 x 24 in
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Indian Woman, 1968, mixed media, 30 1/2 x 24 1/2 in
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Indian IV, 1974, mixed media, 36 x 24 in
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Indian I, 1974, mixed media, 36 x 24 1/2 in
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Indian Portrait: Buffalo Headdress, 1968, mixed media, 30 1/2 x 24 1/2 in
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Indian Sculpture, 1991, oil and acrylic on wood, 24 1/2 x 11 1/4 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2015, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2015, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2015, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2006 - 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2006 - 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x36 in
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Vinetvm et Caelvm, 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2007 - 2008, oil and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in
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Vineyard Landscape, 2014, oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in
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Plein Air Study, Santa Fe, 1966 - 1968, mixed media, 18 x 24 in
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Plein Air Study, Santa Fe, 1971, mixed media, 8 x 10 in
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Plein Air Study, Santa Fe, 1971, mixed media, 9 x 12 in
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Plein Air Study, Santa Fe, 1969, mixed media, 16 x 20 in
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Plein Air Study, Santa Fe, 1972, mixed media, 9 x 12 in
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2015 LewAllen Contemporary LLC Artwork Š Ira Yeager