A reporter asked me recently what I thought about Dorothy Dunn and her teaching at the Santa Fe Indian School. There are definitely two schools of thought, as the reporter pointed out.

Either Dorothy Dunn was enormously helpful to her young American Indian students like Quincy Tahoma, opening up a world of art to them and helping introduce their work as real art rather than ethnographic curiosity.

OR Dorothy Dunn was intrusive and destructive of the American Indian culture, trying to force upon them the unnatural aping of the dominant white culture. That question is not easy to answer.  I do believe that Dorothy Dunn and many of the people who were active in the Santa Fe Indian scene in the first half of the 20th century were guilty of paternalism. However, I have to look at Dunn and her colleagues in the context of the age in which they lived.

Yes, there is no doubt they were paternalistic in their desire to “improve” the American Indians by teaching them to live more like the white people around them, setting the values of non-Indian citizens as a standard, while pretty much remaining ignorant of the values of the Indian people. On the other hand, these are non-Indians who devoted much if not all of their lives fighting the government to improve the education of Indian children, in accordance with earlier treaties.

Untitled, 1938. Prairie dog. Catalog Courtesy of Arizona State Museum Archives, University of Arizona, Tucson. Francis H. Elmore Collection.

People like Dunn fought to allow students to learn about their own culture–although most of that learning came from non-Indian anthropologists and ethnographers rather than from the leaders of the Dine or the Pueblo elders.

Dunn really believed that every American Indian child had innate artistic ability. From our point of view, that it smacks of stereotyping. Even worse, in our view today, Dunn’s rules for the children’s art (see early Quincy Tahoma painting above) encouraged them to continue to paint the same subjects that their ancient ancestors had painted on cave or Kiva walls and not ever to paint pictures with sweeping landscapes or three-dimensional perspective.

Her concept of ideal American Indian art, founded in her study of the discovery of ancient Kiva paintings, led her to try to freeze development in time. There would be no cartoons. There would be no fantasy–she preferred simple reproductions of daily life. Murals were popular, because that was the way Natives were supposedto paint. There would be no use of innovative materials–although ironically her chosen medium of watercolor had been unknown to Natives until it was introduced by archaeologists and schools.

1955 Stolen Horses, Courtesy of Bruce Hartman

As we can see perfectly clearly in Quincy Tahoma’s paintings, a real artist will not be bound by such strictures. One cannot freeze the development of art. We heard from more than one artist who studied under Dunn that they learned more from each other than from Dunn. And although Quincy Tahoma stayed with the medium that Dunn taught–always painting in watercolor, he experimented with cartoons, and stretched his style far beyond what she had held up as ideal.

Dunn particularly disapproved of the violence in some of his paintings. So if the negatives about Dunn were largely ignored by her students, did she do harm? And did she do good?

Quincy Tahoma for one, learned how to sell his art, how to talk about it and how to enter it in competitions and arrange shows at galleries and museums.  He learned the benefit of staying true to the details of costumes from Dunn. From other students and from his own striving for perfection, he learned how to portray the movements of animals and men.

It seems to me worthwhile to think about how the non-Indians of Santa Fe thought and why they thought that way and what their ultimate influence was. I’ll talk in future posts about some of the other powerhouses that populated Santa Fe in the first half of the twentieth century.

You can read more about Dorothy Dunn in Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist.

Which side would you come down on in the argument about Dorothy Dunn?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Santa Fe Indian Market

We met many artists at the Santa Fe Indian Market last week. One in particular made the trip complete for me.

Back in May, as Charnell Havens and I were deep in a blog tour promoting the book Quincy Tahoma: the Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, I wrote at A Traveler’s Library about some books that would help you get acquainted with American Indians.

One of those books was about Geronima Cruz Montoya, The Worlds of Potsúnú: Geronima Cruz Montoya of San Juan Pueblo.

Quincy Tahoma, a Navajo (Diné) honed his artistic talent at the Santa Fe Indian School.  Teacher Dorothy Dunn started what she called The Studio, where young (and not-s0-young) American Indian Artists came to learn to apply new techniques to their talent and old traditions.  Geronima Cruz was a student at the school, and the slim, quiet young woman became Dorothy Dunn’s right hand, helping to teach younger students.  When Dunn left to get married, Geronima Cruz took over as the head of The Studio.

Quincy Tahoma was in high school when that happened. Miss Cruz got married and became Mrs. Montoya. Although her style of painting could not be more different than Tahoma’s–she painted the typical Pueblo way with geometric designs, flat figures, and no background while Tahoma painted roiling action against deserts and mountains– Geronima Cruz Montoya admired the young man’s talent.  She once said that he just sat in the back of the room and painted and painted.

When Charnell and I were gathering information about Tahoma’s life, we interviewed many people who knew him, but we never had a chance to talk to Geronima Montoya. She does not like to do interviews since she has become quite deaf.  But imagine my delight when I discovered her name on the program for the Santa Fe Indian Market. She shared a booth with an artist son. Appropriately placed for such an icon of Indian art, her booth was under the portal in front of the Governor’s Palace on the north side of the Plaza.

Geronima Cruz Montoya at the Santa Fe Indian Market

She sat on a lawn chair in a line with some of her family members, dressed in a patterned blouse and tan slacks, her gray hair pulled back in a bun. I looked at some of her recent paintings in a bin, and then  I approached and said “Geronima Montoya?” She nodded. A relative sat beside her and took in everything I said, and later wrote it all out for the 96-year-old artist.

This woman has lived from the era when Pueblo men were just beginning to paint images on paper for sale to outsiders–mostly ethnologists and anthropologists–until this event that draws 100,000 people each year. She has seen women become a force in the Indian Art World. She has seen the 90-year-old Santa Fe Indian Market grow from a Saturday gathering of Pueblo potters under the portal of the Governor’s Palace in Santa Fe to a sprawling wonderland of 1100 artists from many tribes, many of whom have graduate degrees from universities across the country. And she has seen the market for Indian art grow and diversify–with the traditional art that she practiced fading from view and then having a rebirth.

When I spoke to Geronima Cruz Montoya, I was speaking to the history of American Indian art.

John King, Navajo painter, in front of his Indian Market booth

While teachers like Dunn and Montoya influenced Tahoma, Quincy influenced other artists. We chatted with three artists who are quoted in the book as saying that Quincy Tahoma inspired them. Upton Ethelbah, Jr. (Apache/Santa Clara) of Albuquerque won a blue ribbon for a stunning white sculpture; Anthony Emerson Chee (Diné) has a studio in Farmington, New Mexico and John King (Diné), painter of horses, says he was strongly influenced by Tahoma’s paintings.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

We are grateful that a few people preserved photographs so that we can see a young Tahoma painting a mural at Santa Fe Indian School.

Dorothy Dunn, who had studied ancient pueblo art, based her ideas of what American Indian art should be on what she had seen in archaeological digs uncovering old Kivas walls. She and the archaeologists that had begun to work around New Mexico in the early 1900′s believed that “real” Indian art would look like the paintings of flat figures they had discovered on the mud-covered walls. Thus murals painted by American Indians became very popular.

This popularity of murals coincided with Tahoma’s beginning work with Dorothy Dunn.  In 1932, when Tahoma was in 5th grade, a non-Indian artist, Olive Rush, supervised several local adult Pueblo painters and some students as they created murals in the dining room of the Santa Fe Indian School. From Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist:

“Things were looking up for the young Tahoma, who passed fourth grade on his second try and now had a teacher who praised his drawing.  Surely it was a thrill to see these grown-up artists and older students painting larger-than-life dancers on panels between the windows in the school’s dining room.  While most pictures featured Pueblo dancers, at least one was a familiar Navajo Yei surrounded by the curved rainbow figure that resembled a sand painting. The very presence of these paintings taught him that painting was a serious pursuit.“

The legendary early artists who painted the murals included Abel Sanchez, the father of Ramos, whose home Tahoma would visit often with his friend. Another of the artists was Julian Martinez, the husband of the famous potter Maria.

In March, 1934, Tahoma painted a cactus design on his sixth-grade classroom wall. But in December, 1934, when he was in seventh grade, he joined with boys in higher grades to paint a map of the United States on the wall of the social studies classroom.

Then came the charming mural that circled an entire room. On page 11 of  Modern by Tradition:American Indian Painting in the Studio Style, by Bruce Bernstein and W. Jackson Rushing,  you can see the entire classroom in a photograph. This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn more about Tahoma’s training as an artist.

We described the scene pictured in their book in Quincy Tahoma’s biography.

“Tahoma donned a white coat over his school clothes and climbed up on makeshift scaffolding above bookshelves.  Miss Cruz had assigned him a space about six feet wide in one corner of the room. After several days of planning, making sketches, grinding colored earth, and making paints, he joined with other boys like Belardo Nieto, Ignacio Palmer, Ben Quintana, and Theodore Suina to create a classroom mural.”

“The other students painted scenes from their memories of home life in Pueblos or around hogans and Quincy painted an idealized Navajo family tending sheep.  Unlike his earlier experience with murals, when he painted a small portion of a picture planned by someone else, he had total responsibility for portraying Navajo life in his portion of the mural.”

‘How wonderful that these permanent art works were left behind at Santa Fe Indian School for people today to enjoy and study,’ you may be thinking. Unfortunately, the school’s murals have been destroyed. Despite the fact that the buildings were granted historic landmark status, the board of governors (All Indian Pueblo Council) deemed the buildings too dangerous to remain standing. Not only were some destroyed and other murals painted over, but those in charge used none of the usual historic preservation steps of recording the art and architecture. That is why I said we were fortunate that a few photographs remained to remind us of what an outstanding center of art the school once was.

Other famous murals by Indian artists include those at the Indian Arts store in Albuquerque and the Gerald Naylor murals that line the walls of the Navajo legislative building in Window Rock. If you ever have a chance, go to the top floor of the Interior Department building on the mall in Washington D.C. to see a very fine collection of murals. Have you seen these or other American Indian murals?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Continuing to thumb through the school file that we received from the National Archives, we discovered that the school and Indian Health Service made sure the children were healthy with frequent check-ups. Children living in close quarters at a boarding school had to be carefully observed. Here is a passage from the book:

“Health officials thought that the Navajo love of meat and infrequent access to fresh vegetables caused the scourge of trachoma that was rampant among them.

Each morning after breakfast, Tahoma trouped to the clinic with all the other Navajo children to have his eyes checked.  Trachoma had spread across the Navajo reservation causing sore, bumpy eyelids and, if untreated, left its victims blind.  After many false stars and blunders caused by ignoring native culture, the Indian Health Service was able to eradicate the disease.

The careful medical attention included periodic physical exams at the nearby Indian Hospital for all students.  In November, 1933, Tahoma visited W. G. Lewis, M.D. at the U.S. Indian Hospital in Santa Fe. The poking and prodding by white-coated doctors presented one more humiliation to the child from a culture that shies away from physical contact even among friends and family members.  However, by the time Tahoma had survived four years of bureaucratic exercises, so the procedure was no longer new to him and the experience added one more lesson to his growing ability to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.”

Harrison Begay, Navajo artist who was Tahoma’s friend, had told us that Tahoma had a damaged arm, and some other people had mentioned it. No one knew how it happened, and our initial assumption that it was a birth injury was reinforced by this 1933 medical report, where Dr. Lewis said, “Left arm atrophied (birth accident?) ankylosed at blbow [sic] in 90 deg. position–has use of hand and fingers.” “That part of the examination,” the book goes on, “must have been upsetting, since Tahoma tried to hide his deformed arm from everyone.”

No other physical problems were discovered, but at 16 (now in 6th grade) Tahoma carried only 113 1/2 pounds on his 5’6″ frame.

The next physical exam record in the file dates to 1940, the year he graduated from high school (at 22 years old) He has grown taller–5’9″ and weights 140 pounds. Among the vaccinations and tests listed, we were surprised to see the Wasserman, a test for syphilis, in both 1939 and 1940.

These fragmentary health records from Tahoma’s school days gave his biographers much food for thought. Now we knew what the arm injury was, and could imagine more exactly what it looked like. We could see that although he was pretty skinny and small for his age when he entered school, he grew taller and presumably stronger. His overall health seems good. We learn as much about the attitude of the BIA adminstrators and health care officials as we do about Tahoma. We know what diseases they were concerned about and that they apparently were attempting to keep the students healthy, even if they lacked understanding of Native customs and sensitivity to rights of privacy.

Some people get angry that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services invaded the privacy of the children in their care. Other people see their work as essential to improving the health of the Diné. Which side do you take?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

In the previous post about Tahoma’s school days, I told you how the National Archives file provided a valuable resource to understand Tahoma’s life. In that post, I focused mainly on the yearly reports of grades. An intriguing form dated November, 1936–6 years after he first entered Santa Fe Indian School, substituted for the first day enrollment form we had been hoping for.

Two young Navajo boys roaming the sheep ranch that Tahoma called home. Photograph by Charnell Havens

From this 1936 form, we learned that Tahoma attended Tuba City Day School, “graduating” in May, 1928. Someone had filled the other blanks on the form  with the same information on the earlier record, dated June 1930, so the information presumably just was passed on from year to year. Except that by 1936, Tahoma (or someone) had decided to change his birthday to Christmas day, December 25, 1918. Most importantly, this form included his “Roll No.” 71,254.

During the early years of the 20th century the BIA ran a separate census on the reservations every year. While there might be confusion about the spelling of names, and birth dates were iffy before birth certificates were common, roll numbers ran consecutively within families, and stayed with one person from year to year. This would be our greatest help in finding any family that Tahoma might have had.

Besides grade reports and enrollment forms, other pieces of paper in the file gave us a poignant picture of life at a boarding school.

To recap what we knew at this point, someone enrolled  a 9-year-old orphan boy in Tuba City Indian School.  Three years later, the boy was taken to Albuquerque Indian School and the next year he was transferred to Santa Fe Indian School.  In October, 1930, school officials enrolled him at SFIS in the fourth grade, which told us that he either missed a year of school or repeated one of the first four years. In June, 1931, the teachers told him that his English was not good enough and he would have to repeat fourth grade.

At that point he was probably discouraged, sad and lonely. We do not know how he actually felt, but we do know that he told the principal that he wanted to go home.  The principal wrote a letter to C. L. Walker, Superintendent of the Western Navajo Indian Agency in Tuba City, pleading for information. His early school records spelled his last name as Tahome (with an ‘e’ on the end.)

“Last fall one of your boys, Quincy Tahome, was sent up here from the school at Albuquerque.  We have no regular enrollment blank for him and can not say what his term of enrollment may be.  He is asking to go home and we shall be glad to have you let us know what arrangement you can make for his transportation.”

The officials seem to be saying, ‘Who is this kid and who is responsible for him?’

Mr. Walker replies (correcting the spelling of Tahome to Tohannie, a closer approximation of the To’a'hani clan that Quincy was named for). He refers to Quincy’s enumeration number (roll number) and says,

“Our records indicate that Quincy was transferred October 1, 1929 and therefore is not entitled to return home this year at Government expense, and we do not have any funds to defray his expense home.  If  he wishes to come from personal funds, however, we have no objections.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that paragraph heart-breaking.  This little boy, who doesn’t speak English well, has just been told that he flunked fourth grade, and barely understands where he is, has been away from home for two years, but  it is too soon for the government to pay for him to go home. Never mind that the government was willing to pay to get him to Albuquerque and then to Santa Fe in the first place.

And “personal funds?” How is a small boy, isolated from his people, supposed to have personal funds?

Without question, this represents the lowest point in Tahoma’s school days, but as we will see, he conquers the bureaucracy, the money problem, and definitely overcomes his initial loneliness.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Back in 2005, I received an envelope in the mail that contained possibly the most important documents of all the research that we have done on Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma. A librarian at the National Archives, Rocky Mountain Region Archival Office in Denver mailed us copies of the entire file entitled:

Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Santa Fe Indian School

Student Case Files 1937-1970

8NN-75-90-003, Box #71

Translated, the numbers indicate any records in the archive that mentioned Quincy Tahoma from the time he entered school through years afterward when people tried to contact him through the school. Therefore the file shed light not only on his size and physical condiiton (medical reports), studies and aptitudes (grade cards), finances (letters regarding money), but told us something about his post-school activities as well.

The first thing I did was arrange the stack of papers in chronological order.  At first I was disappointed that there did not seem to be paperwork from  Tahoma’s registration when he transferred from Albuquerque to Santa Indian School, but the first report in the file mentioned that he entered 4th grade at SFIS on October 10, 1930. (Ironically, the same date that his obituary would run in the Santa Fe paper just 26 years later.)

On the school form, date of birth is given as 1918, although census records later told us it was actually 1917.  So he was 12 or 13 years old, depending on what month he was born, and he weighed only 85 pounds at the beginning of the school year and 90 at the end.

The next record gives his grades for that first year, and the information that he failed 4th grade because of “lack of English”  and was held back. This record shows a birth date of May 24, 1918–although he was later to claim he was born on Christmas day. The form lists

• Mother: Dead
• Father: Dead
• Guardian: Manual Siganitzo, brother
• church preference: Catholic
• Home post office: Tuba City, Ariz.

We would later learn that his mother was not dead, and although the Siganitzo (Saganitso) name led us to an adopted family, Manual, younger than Tahoma, almost certainly should not have been listed as guardian. The Saganitso family was not Catholic and the people we talked to have no idea why the school records would list Tahoma as Catholic. The first and last facts listed here were correct.

1935 Navajo Country, Courtesy of Charlotte G. Mittler

As would be the case throughout school, Tahoma got his best grades in art, and high grades in deportment.  His examination scores were abominable. He seemed to be one of those nice, well-behaved kids, who struggled in class and  panicked at test taking. We found it interesting to see what he was studying: Arithmetic, Drawing, English, Geography, Penmanship, Spelling, Physical Education, Reading, History and General Education.

The second time that he took 4th grade, Music was substituted for General, and the grading system changed from a 100-point scale to 1 through 4. Straight “1′s” in drawing and a solid 2 in English, along with deportment that still rated high, meant he was promoted to 5th grade at the end of his second year at SFIS.

He continued as a solid C student, with the exception of art and music classes where he won B’s. Unlike the schools that you and I attended, starting in junior high school, teachers gave grades in such things as Farm, Laundry, Kitchen and Dining Room.

All students at the Indian Boarding Schools were assigned work periods, with the stated aim of teaching them valuable work habits and skills, but with the side benefit to the school of providing unpaid labor for the self-sufficient schools.

A good reference for the development of boarding schools, and particularly Santa Fe Indian school, is History of Indian Arts Education in Santa Fe by Wanda Garmhausen. Sally Hyer’s story based on oral history from Santa Fe Indian School students, One House, One Voice, One Heart, provides invaluable insights into how attendees at the school viewed their own experience. In addition, we interviewed a dozen or more of Tahoma’s friends from school days to learn about their own reactions to the school and their memories of Tahoma the school boy.

I’ll be sharing more about Tahoma’s school days in the days to come.

Were you surprised to learn that students at the boarding school did most of the work that kept the institution in operation?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

*Santa Fe Downtown map

*The numbers on this map do not show Tahoma’s stops. To see what the numbers mean, click on the map to go to its source, WikiMaps.

As we plan our trip to the Santa Fe Indian Market this coming August, I am thinking about the way that Charnell and I were able to walk in Quincy Tahoma’s footsteps as we looked for clues to his life in our many visits to Santa Fe. Thanks, Quincy, for giving us a tour of Santa Fe.

Stop One: Santa Fe Indian School

Santa Fe Indian School, new building

The first and most obvious place on the Tahoma Trail is the campus where he went to school from 5th grade to post graduate.  The school is not open to visitors, but you can drive by on Cerillos Road. Alas, the board of governors of the school decided in 2008 to destroy some of the historic buildings.  Architect John Gaw Meem, who changed the look of Santa Fe, added the Santa Fe  Pueblo Revival look back in the 1933. You can see some historic SFIS photos here. The faculty housing being demolished in these pictures was built in the earlier “Eastern” style (possibly dating back to the 1800′s), but additional buildings torn down that year included some with murals painted during Tahoma’s time at the school (and by Tahoma). However, the property is managed by the northern Pueblos who have sovereign rights to do what they decide is proper, regardless of the cries of historical preservationists.

Stop Two: The Plaza Area

You can visit several locations here that are related to Tahoma. For instance, he frequently showed paintings at the Gallery, which is now the New Mexico Museum of Art on the NW corner of the Plaza.

Proceed north on Lincoln to Federal Way and turn left. That area contained court buildings and law offices where Tahoma sold his paintings.

Back on the Plaza, you can see The Palace of Governors along the north side of the Plaza. Tahoma worked at the Laboratory of Anthropology when it was located behind the Palace of Governors which runs along the north side of the Plaza. (Today it stands on Museum Hill, off the Santa Fe Trail south of the city.)

When he had a studio with photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst, he went to work each day at 112 Don Gaspar Road, just off the Plaza.

In later life he struck up friendships with Jim Silva who owned a nightclub near the Plaza, and Marie Strosser, who owned Meridian Jewelers on the Plaza. It was Marie’s paintings that Charnell inherited and started her search for the story of Tahoma.

1946, Quincy and Nina Bogard walking in Santa Fe. Photo courtesy of Nina.

The Lensic Theater, where he sometimes took girlfriends on dates still stands at 211 West San Francisco Street, where it is now a non-profit concert venue.

On the opposite corner of the Plaza, behind the house at the corner of Palace and Washington would have been a small building that housed the Indian Club where Tahoma hung out during World War II.

Stop Three: Location of The Jail

Proceeding up Washington away from the Plaza, you will see the Santa Fe Library on the right. That is the site that used to be occupied by the Santa Fe City Jail where the Navajo artist was frequently incarcerated for drunkeness.

(Tune in tomorrow for Stop Four and Five as we tour Santa Fe on the Tahoma Trail. In the confusing way of blogs, you can find Stops Four and Five ABOVE this post.)

The photo of Santa Fe Indian School comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons License. Please click on the photo to see more about the photographer.

Experts on Santa Fe, who write a lively blog, have done a walking tour. You can see their Santa Fe Traveler’s Blog with a walk around the Plaza here.

Have you visited Santa Fe and The Plaza? Do you like to follow in the footsteps of a famous former resident when you visit a place?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

We first saw it on the back of his paintings. Not on the front, because very early on he developed a specialty signature, and that is another whole story, which we tell in our book.

Don’t forget, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist will be available in the Spring of 2011.

But on the back of paintings, he would often write a dedication to the person receiving the painting. He gave away a lot of paintings to fortunate friends. And he would often add where he was when he painted it, so we have found references to “Santa Fe Indian School,” the “Santa Fe Indian Hospital”, “Tahoma of Santa Fe,” Tahoma of Tuba City,” and even “Scottsdale” on one. We never saw one that said City Jail or State Prison, although he painted there as well.

Inscription on back of a 1947 painting, Courtesy of The Family of Richard G. Jones

Since there was so little paper trail, and he was something of a drifter, we really did not expect to come up with correspondence, which is the mainstay of much biography.  However, by the time we had talked to a hundred or so people and visited who knows how many history and art intsitutions, we had amassed a rather surprising number of things in Tahoma’s own hand writing.

The first example we saw was a framed letter owned by the Christian Brothers of Santa Fe. In it, Tahoma is asking his friend, one of the Brothers, for money to pay bail. Later, at the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, Charnell found a letter and a follow up telegram to famous photographer Elliott Porter, also asking for money.  Porter had befriended Tahoma, and this time it wasn’t bail, but money to get out of Santa Fe and away from people Tahoma thought were a bad influence on him.  (It is a good story, but we have to leave something for you to read in the book.)

Not all of the Tahoma correspondence is about money. My favorites are the love notes and letters that former girlfriends shared with us.  We interviewed those girlfriends and in the book we  tell the story, as well as reproducing a hand-illustrated Christmas card and a page of a love letter.

1943 Christmas card, Courtesy of Jean Wallace McSwain

Two other outstanding examples of Tahoma’s handwriting showed up.

One had survived in New Mexico. David Brugge and his friend Jim Wilson took in Tahoma at their Albuquerque Indian store. David, who told us the story (and later wrote the Introduction to our biography of Tahoma), did not know if the ledger still existed.  Tahoma made some entries in the hand-written ledger of sales of his paintings, and Charnell came in contact with the then-owner of the ledger, the stepson of Jim Wilson.

The second find completed the story of Tahoma’s fancy penmanship. We were contacted by the owner of a sketchpad that belonged to Tahoma.  An artist’s sketchpad tells so much about how an artist works, and besides telling us how he created paintings, this one showed us that Quincy Tahoma created his fancy penmanship. He must have been taught to write in grade school, like all of us, but the artist in him was not satisfied to just follow the forms in the writing book at Santa Fe Indian School.  He created his own gorgeous swirling “Q” and majestic “T” along with the lesser letters of the alphabet.

1944 drawing from sketch book, Courtesy of Frank Tropiano

If you own a Tahoma painting, have you looked at the back of it to see if he wrote on the back?  Have you ever discovered interesting stuff on the backs of paintings by other artists?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.