Velino Herrera

Velino Shije Herrera (October 22, 1902 – January 1973), also known as Ma Pe Wi, was a Zia Pueblo Indian painter.

Biography Born in Zia Pueblo, New Mexico, Herrera attended the Santa Fe Indian School. The Bureau of Indian Affairs prohibited arts training, but the wife of the superintendent of the school, Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, invited Herrera and his fellow students Fred Kabotie, Otis Polelonema, and Awa Tsireh to paint in her living room. The work of DeHuff's students were displayed at the Museum of New Mexico in 1919 and museum director Edgar Lee Hewett hired Herrera and other artists for various jobs at the museum and for the School of American Research.

In 1954, he was awarded the French Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He largely abandoned painting after being seriously injured in a car accident, which also killed his wife.