The World of
Flower Blue
Pop Chalee: An Artistic Biography

by Margaret Cesa
photography by Michael O'Shaughnessy

54 pages, 9 x 11
40 color plates
150 b/w photographs
$49.95, 1-878610-65-1

Winner of the 1998 Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award for Significant Contribution to the Field
of History in the Fine Arts in New Mexico

op Chalee was one of the first Native American women to achieve national fame, recognition and commercial success in the arts, after her graduation from the famous 1937 class of the Dorothy Dunn studio at the Santa Fe Indian School. Her paintings, jewelry, textile designs and murals grace museums, private collections and public institutions across the country.

The author takes us back to the beginnings of this remarkable woman, born in 1906 in the drab mining town of Castlegate, Utah. Her father was Joseph Lujan of Taos Pueblo. Joseph's brother, Tony Lujan, was married to Mabel Dodge, who brought Taos to national and international fame. Pop's mother was Merea Margherite Luenberger, who had come from Berne, Switzerland with her mother. After the death of her mother, she was adopted by the Greene family and renamed Myrtle Ellen Green. Joe Lujan and Myrtle gave the child the name Merina Lujan. Shortly after, she was given a name in her father's native language of Tewa: Pop Chalee.

The days spent at Taos Pueblo, the home of her beloved father, shaped her adult life and provided her fondest memories. The years of attending the Santa Fe Indian School made clear the daunting obstacles for Native Americans in remaining true to their heritage. The Dorothy Dunn studio Experience gave her a destiny. Pop sought to follow the imperative Navajo belief of "walking in beauty". To do this required courage, intelligence and gritty determination to stay the way.