Two Depression-era artists represented in our collection shared a parallel path—Louie Ewing and Louis Siegriest. Both men were known as painters, yet would become masters of the serigraph printing process.

Louie Ewing grew up in Idaho. As a young man he was interested in the visual arts and during the early 1930s moved to New Mexico to the bohemian world of the Santa Fe Art Colony. Ewing was a man of many talents and was soon recognized for his artistic abilities. In Santa Fe he met Russell Vernon Hunter who was the Director of the Federal Art Project in New Mexico.

Hunter and Chapman of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe developed an idea to create a portfolio of Navajo Blankets (the Masterpiece Series) spanning the years 1840-1910 and drawn from the Laboratory’s collections. Because FAP projects were designed to have an educational dimension, these beautiful Navajo blanket designs were to be shared not only in museum settings but also in public buildings, libraries, and schools.

Chapman selected the weavings and Ewing reproduced the designs through the medium of serigraph. The serigraph process (commonly know as silkscreen) was not considered a “fine art” process, but rather a commercial art process that could reproduce high quality images repeatedly—often as posters advertising consumer goods and services. The FAP utilized the serigraph process by establishing serigraph print studios across the country. This enabled the FAP to produce multiple editions of prints to be disseminated throughout the United States. Ewing took on the task and taught himself the process from a ditto sheet that was sent from Washington D.C. In 1941, The Roswell Museum and Art Center was one of the first venues to exhibit Ewing’s portfolio of Navajo Blankets.

Louis Siegriest was born in Oakland, California in 1899 and spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area.  As a young painter Siegriest was associated with a group of California colorists known as the Society of Six. During the l930s Siegriest worked as a commercial artist specializing in serigraph poster design, and met Bill Gaskin who was a supervisor for the FAP. The success of Siegriest’s work for Gaskin came to the attention of René d’Harnoncourt who was Director of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, a New Deal agency created to revive and promote American Indian arts. In 1939, Siegriest worked on a series of serigraphs promoting d’Haroncourt’s exhibition of American Indian arts and crafts at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco.