Tonita Peña was the only woman in the earliest group of self-taught Pueblo painters, who were active beginning in the early 20th century. Even though this art form would come to be iconic thanks to the support of proponents like Dorothy Dunn, in its early days Pueblo works on paper were considered to be inferior to Western European oil on canvas paintings in both subject matter and style.

Peña was born in San Ildefonso, a small village in New Mexico, and later moved to Cochiti Pueblo. Her paintings can be dated by variations of her signature, usually a variation of "Quah Ah," her Tewa name. Her work, characteristic of Pueblo painting, features crisp images depicting life on the reservation, from the pedestrian to the ceremonial.

Tonita Peña painted daily, raised six children, taught at the Santa Fe and Albuquerque Indian Schools, made painted copies of the excavated murals at Pajarito, and exhibited in numerous museums in the Southwest. Her teaching and original artwork inspired the next generation of Pueblo painters that would come to include Pablita Velarde as well as Peña's son Joe Herrera.

Exhibited: Society of Independent Artists (1932-34), First Nations Exhibition of American Indian Painters (Philbrook, AC) 1946.

Works Held: Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, Arizona; Great Plains Art Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico; National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas; The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; Cantor Art Gallery, Stanford, Palo Alto, California.