Felipe Archuleta

{{Short description|American painter}}

{{Infobox artist

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| name = Felipe Benito Archuleta

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| birth_name = Felipe Benito Archuleta

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|08|23}}

| birth_place = Santa Cruz, New Mexico

| death_date = 1991 (aged 81)

| death_place = Tesuque, New Mexico

| nationality = American

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Felipe Benito Archuleta (1910–1991) was a Hispanic artist who worked mostly in New Mexico. Felipe Benito Archuleta grew up poor. He left school at an early age to work as a field hand and later as a stonemason, cook, and for many years a carpenter.{{cite web|url=http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/768.html?page=2|title=Philadelphia Museum of Art - Exhibitions - "Great and Mighty Things": Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection|publisher=philamuseum.org|accessdate=2014-05-31}} His Spanish heritage exposed him to "bulto" making, the shaping of wooden religious figures used in shrines.{{cite web|url=http://www.askart.com/askart/a/felipe_benito_archuleta/felipe_benito_archuleta.aspx |title=Felipe Archuleta - Artist, Fine Art, Auction Records, Prices, Biography for Felipe Benito Archuleta |publisher=Askart.com |date=2002-01-18 |accessdate=2014-05-28}} In 1967, unable to find work, Felipe prayed to God to alleviate his poverty and desperation. His subsequent religious awakening led to his work as a carver of animals.{{cite web|url=http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=129 |title=Felipe Archuleta / American Art |publisher=Americanart.si.edu |date= |accessdate=2014-05-28}} Felipe is best known for his animal sculptures that emphasize the ferocious nature of the animals he portrays by providing them with irregularly carved teeth, wide-eyed stares, and exaggerated snouts and genitals.

File:Felipe Archuleta.JPG Archuleta carved his last major work in the Spring of 1987 due to suffering from arthritis.{{cite book|last1=Rosenak|first1=Chuck and Jan|title=Museum of International Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists|date=1990|publisher=Abbeville|location=New York|isbn=1558590412|page=[https://archive.org/details/museumofamerican00rose/page/36 36]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/museumofamerican00rose/page/36}}