Find of the Week Folk Art of the Southwest

July 14, 2020

Find our unique southwest collection. Video Translation: Hi this is Jennifer here with City Farmhouse Antiques and I am here with this week's find of the week. This piece is really unusual, and the artist lives here in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, which is close to home for me. This is a Delbert Buck piece of folk art. He is one of the Navajo Native Americans known for his work of folk art pieces. His work has actually been shown in the Smithsonian museum as well as many galleries here in the southwest. He is known for his unique pieces that bring humor to life. He started sculpting pieces with everyday items like wood, pieces of cottonwood tree and so on. He started sculpting pieces at 9 years old and was inspired by comic books and stories to create humorous pieces like a sheep driving a car. He then weaved into his art the stories of his mother and grandmother who have inspired many of his pieces over the years. Folk art is really popular by many collectors and I sell a lot of folk art pieces. Here you can see how in this piece he makes it possible for a dog to be represented as the town sheriff. This dog is wearing all hand made glasses which are pretty neat. He has his guns right here. Delbert was also inspired by his love of horses and the rodeo so you can see how he has weaved those details into his pieces as well. You can see how he even has the cutest little spurs that he made here in the back. All his pieces are hand painted. These larger pieces take him about a month to produce and make with all the hand painting and detail that goes into each piece. Each piece is really unusual. As a child, when Delbert was only 12 years old his father started getting his pieces into local art galleries and displayed at trading posts where he started selling his wares. He is 100 percent self taught. He has since gone to school and learned the modern trade of physical therapy and he balances a career of art and producing these unique pieces with getting his education like so many of us do although I don't claim to be artistic by any means. This Delbert Buck piece of southwestern folk art will be up on our website at www.cityfarmhouseantiques.com where we have more than just antiques and be sure to give us a like on Facebook.