WHIMSICAL FOLK ART CHICKEN BY NAVAJO CARVER LES HERBERT

Description

Please be pleased to meet up with a whimsical being in fowl form. This Navajo folk art chicken is a charmer - coming with at-ti-tude and a distinctive dollop of chicken cuteness. You don’t have to be a chicken fancier to fall for this one.
Carved and hand painted by Les (Lawrence) Herbert, a very well known and admired Navajo folk art carver
re
nowned for just this kind of colorful and delightful creativity,
he brings his talents and humor to create animals indigenous to his native Navajo lands, and a few from beyond those borders. The chicken is signed on the bottom and measures 5 ½ inches from bottom of the base to the top of its fine raffia tail, comb included. Body length is 3 inches. Favorites in my Herbert collection, besides my own chicken, are a wonderful buffalo and a decidedly handsome elk.
While some Navajo folk art animals are quite primitive and traditional, others, like this one, may be painted in bright colors and full of whimsy.
Google Les Herbert to find out more about him, his carving career and to see more of his works. In an article by Kim Hill, she quotes Catherine Fetka of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ.:
“So far, we have not seen manufacturers try to copy this art on a mass scale,” says Fetka. “It remains true folk art.”
Fetka also notes that when artists are no longer carving, as is Herbert’s case, their pieces command higher prices.
Please email me with any questions you may have. Thanks for your interest!