Harry Fonseca (1946-2006) was born in Sacramento, California of Nisenan Maidu, Hawaiian, and Portugese heritage.

In his long career as an exhibiting artist, Harry Fonseca’s work went through a number of transformations, but the one constant was his openness to new influences and sources of inspiration.

Fonseca began the Coyote Series in 1979. The subject of these works is Coyote, the trickster and transformer. Fonseca resituated the culture hero into contemporary settings, such as San Francisco’s Mission District. Coyote can become an updated and sneaker-wearing Rousseau, holding his palette on a Parisian quay (‘Rousseau Revisited’, 1986), or headress-clad and sneakered (‘Coyote in Front of Studio’, 1983). Coyote became an alembic through which Fonseca filtered his vision of the artist, and the Indian, in society.