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A rare original Felipe Benito Archuleta
New Mexico Folk Art mixed-media drawing/painting of a goose, squirrel and dog, 1988
ex: Murdoch J. Finlayson Collection, Santa Fe
FELIPE BENITO ARCHULETA (1910-1991) is pretty much the first and last word in 20th century New Mexico folk art. There are several of his followers and apprentices of note such as his son, Leroy Archuleta, his former assistant David Alvarez and his grandson, Ronnie Rodriguez Archuleta, but Felipe essentially and singlehandedly made the genre exciting and desirable with his groundbreaking, endlessly imaginative and expressive figures, alternately brooding, hulking, sulking, sad, angry, often mischievous and somewhat strangely goofy and occasionally even fairly happy; depictions of the local flora and fauna as well as of numerous other exotic creatures, large and small, from across the country and around the world. And, quite interestingly, many of his creations also bear a distinct facial resemblance to their creator.
But in the midst of all this impressively large body of wood work, this crazy giant menagerie of literally hundreds of various carved and painted wood animals, snakes and birds, there is one medium that is rarer than all the rest of Felipe’s extensive body of work and that is his formal drawings/paintings on paper such as this piece.
At left, Felipe Benito Archuleta in his studio/wood yard outside Santa Fe, Tesuque, NM, c. 1980’s. At right, Santa Fe Folk Art dealer, collector and author, Murdoch J. Finlayson, Santa Fe, c. 1996.
The drawing is done in very mixed media; pencil, colored felt tip pen, possibly crayon, Magic Marker and perhaps some
type of paint on a plain white sheet of paper and it measures 11" in height and 7 3/4" in width (sight) and its framed dimensions are 17 1/4" in height and 14" in width. The drawing is most beautifully and appropriately framed in a hand-carved finely-beveled and splined light maple wood frame by Goldleaf Framemakers of Santa Fe, Santa Fe’s finest
fine art framers. It is archivally matted and framed under TruVue Ultraviolet light-resistant “Museum” conservation glass. The drawing is in very good original condition with a few creases and slight wrinkling to the paper, but nothing
too problematic or distracting. You can also clearly see where Felipe decided to change the configuration of the dog figure and re-adjusted the position of one of its hind legs.
Please keep in mind folks, that this is not only folk art, but New Mexico Folk Art and it’s naturally supposed
to be a bit funky and raw. And, following in that slightly funky vein, there’s also the very prominent and proper characteristically bold Felipe Archuleta signature and date rendered in thick black letters across the entire top
of the drawing “2-24-1988-by-F.B.A.” Felipe loved his signature immensely and he always featured “BY F.B.A” and the
creation date of the piece prominently, sometimes VERY prominently on all of his original pieces.
Well, that’s all there is, folks. This is the last one of these rare pieces we’ll probably ever have and chances
are you’ll probably never see another one anywhere, so, if the spirit moves you here, you know just what to do.
To see other works by Felipe Benito Archuleta on our website, please click here.
Price $1,650
Over the 50 or so years that we have been involved in Felipe Archuleta’s work, we have only ever seen one small collection of these; sixteen to eighteen pieces or so in all and they were all held in the private personal collection of one of the pioneers of New Mexico folk art and its appreciation, the unique dealer, collector, author and irascible and unforgettable Santa Fe personality, Murdoch J. Finlayson (1940-2019) who was one of Felipe Archuleta’s closest friends, confidants, drinking buddies and in some ways, his artistic co-conspirator and alter ego.
It is well worth noting that we have never seen a Felipe Archuleta drawing/painting such as this one in any one of the numerous museum shows and collections of Archuleta’s work we have seen over the past several decades, we have never seen one in any auction and we have never seen one in the collections of any number of prominent Felipe Archuleta collectors we have known over these many years save the one collector to whom we sold this collection of Murdoch’s back in 2020, and this particular drawing is the last one remaining of that unique and unprecedented group. The three figures, goose, squirrel and dog are done in relatively flat perspective floating in space against the white paper background and they all have the characteristic Archuleta slightly crazy look and expression.
