The Shield Design
Fine Arts Collection U.S. General Services Administration
U.S. General Services Administration
- On the north wall, Zia Pueblo artist Velino Herrera created two stylized compositions that feature symbolic designs: The Shield Design and The Eagle Dance Design. The Shield Design includes abstracted symbols that are drawn from Pueblo design elements. A round shield at center features a snake and two handprints and footprints. Behind the shield, eagle feathers adorn two crossed spears. At the base of the design, a corn stalk grows from a rising or setting sun, and two crescent moons in the lower right and left corners help frame this highly geographic composition.
Velino Shije Herrera, also known as Ma Pe Wi, was commissioned in 1939 to create a series of murals at the new Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. He was one of four Native American artists who painted 2,200 feet of murals for the eighth-floor penthouse, which served as the employee lounge. While Herrera painted the north corridor, Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo covered the south corridor. In the main room, the walls were divided between Chiricahua Apache artist Allan Houser and Navajo painter Gerald Nailor. The Secretary of the Interior at the time, Harold Ickes, insisted on commissioning artworks by Native American artists. Because of this mandate, the Section of Fine Arts invited Crumbo, Herrera, Houser, and Nailor to participate in the penthouse project and commissioned two Kiowa artists, James Auchiah and Stephen Mopope, to paint murals for the cafeteria.
