Category: Fine Arts, Drawings, Yale University
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In 1916 Elizabeth Willis DeHuff’s husband, John David DeHuff, became superintendent of the Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Elizabeth, twenty-four years old and educated as a teacher at Barnard College in New York, quickly became interested in the art and culture of the couple’s new home, and in the students who attended the school. DeHuff began inviting boys from the school into her home for afternoon painting lessons. Students that received training included Fred Kabotie, Otis Polelonema (both Hopi) and Velino Shije Herrera (of Zia Pueblo).
New Haven resident William H. Townsend made pen-and-ink sketches of the Amistad captives while they were awaiting trial. Twenty-two of these drawings were given to Yale in 1934 by Asa G. Dickerman, whose grandmother was the artist's cousin. Townsend, who was about 18 years old when he made the drawings, is buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, beside the Yale University campus. Call Number: GEN MSS 335
