Mateo Romero is a member of the Cochiti Pueblo. His Indian name is He-tse-tewa or “War Shield.” Romero earned degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Mexico. His work is in the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Romero’s work was included in Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (2019-2021), a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York.