# Lee A. Yazzie

Diné (Navajo) master lapidary and sculpted-inlay innovator. Born 1946. Trained under Preston Monongye and Joe Tanner. Heard Museum-recognized as one of the most refined craftsmen in contemporary Southwest jewelry. The quiet bridge between traditional Diné lifeways and a new generation of jewelry art.

"I was raised in a hogan, and that's an influence in itself. You lay at night, you dream, and you see all those logs, the patterns…"

— Lee A. Yazzie, in Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family (Lois Sherr Dubin, NMAI/Smithsonian, 2014)

Heritage and home

Lee A. Yazzie is Diné (Navajo), born in 1946 on the Navajo Nation. He is the fourth eldest in a large family of working silversmiths and jewelers — the Yazzies — whose multi-generational practice was the subject of Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family (Lois Sherr Dubin, National Museum of the American Indian / Smithsonian, 2014), the canonical published study of the family's contribution to Southwest jewelry.

The Yazzies are not a household last name in Diné country in the way the headlines might imply — Yazzí means small in the Diné language, and many Diné families carry the name. The Lee Yazzie of this page is the silversmith who trained under Preston Monongye in the late 1960s, whose work entered Joe Tanner's Indian Arts Gallery in the early 1970s, and whose lapidary innovations are now studied at the Heard Museum. He is sometimes referred to as Lee A. Yazzie to distinguish him from other Diné silversmiths sharing the surname.

The hogan childhood

Lee grew up in his family's hogan on the Navajo Nation. The hogan — the traditional Diné dwelling, eight-sided in its female form, with the door always facing east toward sunrise — has been more than architecture in his life. It has been the visual library his work reaches back into:

"I was raised in a hogan, and that's an influence in itself. You lay at night, you dream, and you see all those logs, the patterns…"

The line between the geometry of stacked notched logs in a hogan ceiling and the geometry of a Lee Yazzie inlay piece is not coincidental. It is the same eye, looking at two surfaces.

Lee's father was Chee Yazzie, a respected Hatathli (Diné medicine man) whose ceremonial knowledge shaped the family's spiritual life. His mother, Elsie Yazzie, was a working silversmith who sold her own jewelry — the household's economic anchor — and who later in life joined the Mormon Church, a decision that opened a difficult chapter for the family. In 1965, after more than twenty years in the hogan, the family moved into a house in Gallup, New Mexico. Three years later, Elsie sought a divorce.

This is family history TSkies discloses gently and with respect — Lee himself reveres his father despite the rift, and the broader Yazzie family practice is a story of resilience, not just of jewelry. The Diné concepts of balance (hózhó), reciprocity, and harmony that animate Lee's work were absorbed through years of his father's ceremonial life and his mother's bench. Both parents are present in the silver.

The accidental beginning — hip surgery and the silver beads

Lee did not set out to become a silversmith. As a teenager and young adult, he worked the jobs his community offered — fields, town work, whatever was available. He attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, on a scholarship arranged through Mormon-Church connections, but a lifelong dislocated-hip condition made walking the long distances on the BYU campus impossible. He had to leave mid-year for surgery.

The recuperation was the door.

While he was recovering at home and unable to walk, Lee began making silver beads — first to help his older sister, who was assembling a squash-blossom necklace. He learned to dome silver. He drilled holes. He developed the patience and sustained focus a still body teaches a working mind.

When his recovery ended, what had started as a way to pass the convalescence had become a craft. Joe Tanner, then proprietor of Tanner's Indian Arts Gallery, was impressed by the early work and arranged a visit to Lee's home. Within a week of that visit, Joe was sending Lee material and asking him for more. The artistic career began there.

Lee himself frames it with characteristic understatement: "It was probably the time when I learned to dome silver."

The mentor — Preston Monongye

Lee's apprenticeship under Preston Monongye (Hopi and Mission Indian descent), one of the great Native jewelers of the twentieth century, established the technical foundation for everything Lee would later make. Preston was working in Albuquerque and was a teacher of the kind young silversmiths flocked to. Lee describes the chance:

"While recuperating, Lee started to incorporate his work with Preston, [who] was also there [in the gallery] casting and making… and lapidary. One day [we] got to work [together] and they created the inlays…"

(Quote stitched from extracts of Glittering World; some lines are paraphrased for readability where the OCR was fragmented.)

What Preston gave Lee was the sculpted-lapidary technique — stonework that rises in three-dimensional form above its silver or gold setting, rather than sitting flush in a bezel. It is a disciplined departure from earlier flat-inlay traditions and it is the signature Lee has continued to refine for more than five decades.

The mature style — sculpted lapidary at master-craftsman level

The Heard Museum curator Diana Pardue has described Lee's work as that of "a master craftsman as both an inlayer and metalsmith, coupled with using the finest stones, while remaining profoundly grounded in the Navajo lifeways of balance and harmony."

Master jeweler Jesse Monongya (Navajo/Hopi) — Preston's son — has echoed Pardue's framing in his own words.

What you see in a finished Lee Yazzie piece:

- Stonework that rises above its setting — sculpted lapidary, not flat inlay. The stone has surface relief; light moves on it differently than on flat inlay. - The finest material — Lee chooses stone the way a sommelier chooses a vintage. Spider Web Lone Mountain turquoise, Nevada Blue turquoise, deep-saturation Mediterranean and Pacific corals, gem-grade lapis. He uses the stone the maker reserved for the masters. - Subtle pattern over visible drama — Lee places stones to expose large expanses of stone rather than to fragment them. The effect is breathtaking but understated. - Every silver and gold surface adorned, including the sides — there are no bare flanks on a Lee Yazzie piece. The hand-stamping, hand-chasing, and hand-engraving wraps the stone setting completely. - Innovative construction — painstakingly executed mechanical and adhesive solutions secure his lapidary in place over decades.

It is the work of a person who was trained by a master, who has spent fifty years in disciplined practice, and who has the eye for stone that comes from looking at a hogan ceiling for the first eighteen years of life.

Bessie and Lee — the collaborative work

Lee's wife, Bessie Yazzie, is a silversmith in her own right. Across their joint career, the two have produced a body of collaborative pieces in which each made the elements they specialized in: Bessie crafted the round silver beads of necklaces; Lee crafted the centerpieces, the focal pendants, the sculpted-inlay elements. Reversible necklaces (an awa pattern, where each side shows a different but coordinated design) are among the most striking examples of their joint practice.

Pieces by Lee A. Yazzie alone bear his hallmark; collaborative pieces are typically credited to Lee A. Yazzie and Bessie Yazzie together, or with both names on the gallery card. When you see a Yazzie piece with that joint attribution, you are seeing two careers' worth of skill in one object.

"It was like I was talking to another Navajo" — the Haida Gwaii trip, 2000

In October 2000, Lee was part of a delegation of ten southwestern jewelry artists who traveled to the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia for the second half of a cultural-exchange program. The trip included Marian Denipah (Tewa/Navajo), Veronica Poblano (Zuni), Steve Lalo (Hopi), and others. Lee, who is not naturally a traveler, was initially reluctant to go. He recalls:

"Going to Vancouver and Haida Gwaii was an awakening. I thought those people were going to be so completely different — a foreign country — but when I was talking to them it was like I was talking to another Navajo."

The line is one of the great quiet revelations in late-twentieth-century Indigenous-art exchange writing. It captures, in plain English, the lived experience of an Indigenous artist who recognized in another Indigenous nation — across an entire continent and several languages — the same texture of life. Carving and raising a totem pole with Haida carver Jim Hart at the Sgaang Gwaii memorial site was among the trip's highlights.

"The repetition of perfection" — Lee's philosophy of practice

Lee's most-cited philosophical statement on his work returns to his childhood and to the Diné ceremonies that animated it:

"[I am] more concerned with perfecting [a piece] than coming up with something new — for the repetition of perfection — from my childhood observations of the sandpainting ceremonies where perfection is on each piece that you develop. You take it [in] another direction, or add just a few things to make it better. That is what I have tried to do in my life: to always try to make the next [piece better]."

(Stitched from Glittering World, Chapter on Lee A. Yazzie.)

It is the opposite of a market-driven aesthetic. Lee is not chasing novelty. He is chasing completion. The next piece is not a different piece — it is the same intention, slightly closer to fulfilled.

T.Skies recognizes that Diné ceremonial knowledge — including the sandpainting practice Lee references — is not for general public discussion, and we honor that. We quote Lee's own words about the influence ceremonies had on his discipline because he chose to share them in his published biography. We do not extend the framing into territories the family or the community has not authorized.

T.Skies and the Yazzie family

T.Skies has a relationship with the broader Yazzie family circle through the Authentic Makers and SWAIA-affiliated network. Lee's published profile is one of the highest-grade scholarly bios in the entire NMAI/Smithsonian publication catalog, and his work commands prices that reflect that standing — most pieces in the secondary market are now $5,000 to $50,000+, and a Lee Yazzie centerpiece in a notable collection rarely changes hands without direct collector-to-collector negotiation.

When T.Skies is fortunate enough to have a Lee A. Yazzie piece — through a sourcing trip, an artist intro, or a private-collector consignment — we present it the way the work asks to be presented: lineage named, stones identified by mine, technique described, and price set to honor the artist and the master craftsmanship inside the object. We do not generalize his designs. We do not under-describe.

If you would like to be notified when a Yazzie piece comes through the gallery, please join our Inner Circle — heirloom-grade pieces from artists in this register are released to Inner Circle members first, with a 30-minute early-access window before general availability.

How to recognize a Lee A. Yazzie piece

In a market where his name carries collector premium, provenance discipline is essential when buying a Lee Yazzie piece. What to look for:

- Hallmark: L.A. YAZZIE or LEE YAZZIE in script or block, generally on the back of the piece. Consistency of the stamp is one of the first authentication checks. - Sculpted, three-dimensional inlay — the stone surface is not flat. Light should reveal a curve. - Fine-grade material — high-quality Spider Web Lone Mountain turquoise, Nevada Blue, deep coral, gem lapis. Lower-grade stones in a piece attributed to Lee should raise immediate questions. - Every silver and gold surface decorated, including the sides and underside. Bare flanks on a "Lee Yazzie" piece are a red flag. - Provenance documentation — gallery card with date and sale chain, museum exhibition record, or direct family-of-collector documentation. - Hands-on inspection by a knowledgeable gallery is recommended before any acquisition above $1,500. T.Skies is happy to assist with this on pieces our gallery is sourcing or pieces a customer is considering at auction.

If you suspect a misattribution, the Heard Museum, the NMAI/Smithsonian, and the SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) are the institutional authorities for Yazzie-family work. T.Skies' direct relationships within the SWAIA-and-Authentic-Makers network give us additional informal authentication channels we extend to our long-term collectors.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell which "Lee Yazzie" a piece is by?

There are several Diné silversmiths with the surname Yazzie, and at least one other working artist named Lee Yazzie has produced jewelry over the decades. The Lee A. Yazzie of this page is the silversmith born in 1946, who apprenticed under Preston Monongye, was profiled in Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family (NMAI/Smithsonian, 2014), and whose hallmark generally includes the middle initial A. If the hallmark is just YAZZIE or LEE YAZZIE without the A, please ask us before assuming attribution — we'll help you place it.

What stones does Lee work with?

Lee chooses gem-grade material of the kind master craftsmen reserve for collector pieces. Spider Web Lone Mountain turquoise (Nevada), Nevada Blue turquoise, deep-grade Mediterranean and Pacific coral, and gem-quality lapis are all named in his published catalog of works. He has also worked with sugilite, gaspeite, and other rare materials in particular pieces.

Who else is in the Yazzie family of jewelers?

The Yazzie family covered in the Glittering World book includes Lee, his wife Bessie Yazzie, his brother Raymond Yazzie, and other family members. Each has their own published catalog. T.Skies has a separate directory page for Bessie Yazzie when joint pieces require equal-billing attribution.

Does T.Skies offer commissions or custom pieces from Lee Yazzie?

Lee is a senior master and his commission queue is a private matter handled through a small set of long-standing collectors and galleries. We do not take open-public commissions on Lee's work. If you are a serious collector with provenance for prior Yazzie acquisitions and would like a discreet introduction, please contact us directly and we will assess whether an introduction is appropriate.

Where can I see Lee Yazzie's work in a museum?

Lee's pieces are held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of the American Indian / Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), and a number of private collections that loan to traveling exhibitions. The 2014 NMAI exhibition Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family was the major retrospective of the family's work; the catalog of the same name is the canonical printed study.

Related at T.Skies

- Bessie Yazzie — Lee's wife and collaborative partner (directory page in development) - The Yazzie Family — broader family overview (directory page in development) - Spider Web Lone Mountain turquoise — the Nevada mine producing some of Lee's most-cited material (stone-mine page in development) - Diné (Navajo) silversmithing — broader Diné tradition context (directory page in development) - The T.Skies Artist Co-Op — our 501(c)(3) preserving handmade Native American and Southwestern jewelry traditions

Sources

This biography was assembled from:

- Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family by Lois Sherr Dubin (National Museum of the American Indian / Smithsonian, 2014) — primary source for Lee's life, family, training, mature work, and direct quotes - Heard Museum curator Diana Pardue's published commentary (heard.org and Glittering World) — for the master-craftsman framing - *John Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944, University of Oklahoma Press) — for foundational Diné silversmithing context - Margaret Wright, Hopi Silver: The History and Hallmarks of Hopi Silversmithing (1999, 5th rev. ed., Northland) — for Preston Monongye context - Gregory Schaaf, American Indian Jewelry I: 1,200 Artist Biographies (2003, CIAC Press) — for peer Diné silversmith cross-references - NMAI/Smithsonian, Glittering World exhibition catalog and program notes (americanindian.si.edu, 2014) — for the Haida Gwaii trip details and exhibition history

About the author

Mateo James is the founder of T.Skies and editor of the T.Skies Silversmith Directory — of Spanish and Indigenous descent, with Yaqui and Spanish lineage on his grandmother's side. Trained in traditional Southwestern silversmithing technique through long apprenticeship with Indigenous and Spanish-heritage masters, he writes the directory as an ongoing scholarly contribution to documenting the makers and lineages of Native American and Southwestern jewelry. More about Mateo James →

A note on accuracy — and an invitation

We do our best to make every Silversmith Directory page accurate, respectful, and reflective of the artist and family it documents.

If you know Lee Yazzie or his family personally, and you see something on this page that is not quite right — a date, a relationship, a piece attribution, a story — we would be honored to hear from you and correct it. Suggest a correction or addition →

This page is a living document. We update it whenever new authoritative sources come to light or whenever family or community members reach out. The version date below reflects the most recent revision.

This biography was prepared by Mateo James for T.Skies as part of our Silversmith Directory project — an ongoing effort to give named, lineage-honoring biographies to the Native American and Southwestern silversmiths whose work passes through our gallery. We do not claim to speak for the Navajo Nation or for the artist; where Lee's own words are quoted they are sourced from Glittering World (NMAI/Smithsonian, 2014). All cultural-attribution claims are made to be IACA-clean. We honor that Diné ceremonial knowledge — including sandpainting practice — is not for general public discussion. Last updated 2026-04-28.*