Second photo taken by T. Harmon Parkhurst of his studio

The previous post zeroed in on a photograph of T. Harmon Parkhurst’s studio provided by Marilyn Casabonne. It contained a historical treasure-trove of Quincy Tahoma paintings.  What could be better?  How about two more Parkhurst photos that show many more Tahoma paintings?

Spearing Dinner, 1946. Courtesy of a Private Collector.

In the second photo, the superimposed red number 1 (right side, large painting framed with white matte) identifies a 1946 painting entitled Spearing Dinner.  Originally purchased by Bernalillo trader James Silva and now in the hands of a new owner, it can be seen on page 199 of the book Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. Other paintings in this snapshot are similar to ones I have seen (or photographed while researching Tahoma’s art), but there were no additional exact matches.  The same holds true for the third and last photo of the series.

Cropped portion of the third snapshot of Parkhurst's studio

I cropped the final snapshot  so the reader could see the photograph, outlined by a red box, that T. Harmon Parkhurst took of Quincy Tahoma.  This official portrait of the Navajo artist appears on page 184 of the book, where it has a special place of honor in the Epilogue.

Autographed photo of Quincy Tahoma, now known to be taken in 1946, Courtesy of the Family of Richard G. Jones.

Tahoma gave a signed copy to Dick Jones, with whom he became friends during their imprisonment in 1947.  Also, a large color version of the portrait currently is on display at Adobe Galleryin Santa Fe through September 20, courtesy of collector Mark O. Rosaker.  Clearly, this portrait started as a T. Harmon Parkhurst photograph and it was probably colored using Marshall oils (the popular technology in the 1940s and 1950s, folks!)

Portrait of Quincy Tahoma on display at Adobe Gallery, Courtesy of Mark O. Rosacker

It’s possible that Quincy Tahoma himself colored the portrait, since he reportedly did that type of work for photographer Parkhurst. So, thanks to Marilyn Casabonne, several mysteries have been solved by these three photographs of the Parkhurst studio.

• We now know that they were taken in 1946, as was the portrait of Tahoma .
• We also know that Quincy Tahoma’s ability to create similar (look-alike) scenes from memory was even more developed and astonishing than we had previously thought.
• And we know that T. Harmon Parkhurst was one of Tahoma’s best cheerleaders, featuring his watercolors throughout his studio on Don Gaspar Street.  We have known for quite some time that Tahoma’s art sold quickly, so the abundance of his paintings in Parkhurst’s photos speaks to how prolific an artist he was.

How exciting is it to unravel bits and pieces of history from three 8×10 black and white photos  60+ years old?! All rights are reserved for all photos used in this post. If you want to compare these paintings and the Tahoma portrait, you can purchase the book from the Buy Now box on the right hand top of the page. We would love to locate some of the other Tahoma paintings shown in this pictures. Even with more than 250 of Quincy’s paintings featured in Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, we know that there are many we have never located. Do you have any leads for us? (Reminder: if you are reading this in your e-mail, you will need to click over to the website to respond).

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Post by Charnell

Marilyn Casabonne with her parents, photo by T. Harmon Parkhurst

Marilyn Casabonne smiled as she sorted through her parents’ Santa Fe memorabilia. Her mind floated back to early childhood days when her family and photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst spent many weekends at a mountain retreat.  Parkhurst snapped a picture of Lyn at age three with her parents at one of those gatherings and to this day, more than seventy years later, it hangs in a place of honor in her home.

Lyn’s sorting produced more than sweet memories of her childhood.  She found three well-preserved black and white 8 x 10s taken by Parkhurst of his studio sometime in the 1946-1950 timeframe. Those photos answer several of the questions Vera and I had about the years the photographer let Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma paint in a loft of his studio on Don Gaspar street in Santa Fe.

One wall of the Parkhurst Studio circa 1946

The first glimpse inside Parkhurst’s Studio shows Tahoma’s paintings displayed on two walls, beside a painting by another (unknown) artist; many Navajo Indian rugs; pieces of pueblo pottery; and a professional photograph by Parkhurst.  The door toward the end of the main wall suggests a depth to the shelf on which the pottery is displayed, and that area may indeed have served as Tahoma’s loft during the early- to mid- 1940s.

If you click on the Parkhurst photo to enlarge it, you’ll find that I’ve superimposed red numbers at the tops of three paintings.

Buffalo Hunt, 1945. Accession #: 2003.153.2. Gift of Duane and Beverly Miller to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

Number 1 is the 1945 Buffalo Hunt painting owned by Duane and Beverly Miller until they donated it in 2003 to the famous  National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.  We received permission to use the digital image too late to include it in the book Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, but here it is for you to enjoy.

Number 2 is a 1946 Buffalo Hunt painting currently owned by the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa.  I photographed that painting when I visited the Philbrook several years ago (and therefore can verify it’s the same one as is in this photograph) but cannot include it in this post in the absence of reproduction rights.

Cut-out of the painting (labeled #3) in the Parkhurst Studio photo

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I have been reading a fascinating book about the life and business of Fred Harvey, who helped the Santa Fe railroad draw tourists to the western United States in the early twentieth century, and played a role in creating a market for American Indian art.  I plan to write a little more about that later, but first I thought I would ponder the effect of train travel on Tahoma’s life.

During our research for Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, the first indication that we got of how important train travel was in the early years of Tahoma’s life, came in those valuable school records that the archivist at the National Archives office in Denver sent to us.

Railroad Station at Flagstaff today

There on the printed form for students, along with details like mother and father, birthdate, previous school attended, etc., we saw a line to fill in the “Nearest railroad station”.  Now that’s a detail you will not find on school forms nowadays! Not only that, but Tahoma, who lived in northern Arizona near Tuba City, had to travel slightly more than 77 miles from his home to his “nearest” railroad station in Flagstaff, Arizona–a journey of an hour and a half by car. However, his family did not have a car–they traveled by wagon. So getting TO the railroad station took almost as long as getting from there to Albuquerque on the train.

Lamy Station today

The next interesting thing we learned was that there was no railroad station in Santa Fe. Instead, the train stopped at the tiny community of Lamy, New Mexico. So when Tahoma was switched to the Santa Fe Indian School, he traveled 15 miles by bus from Lamy to get in to Santa Fe.

Yet, for the Navajos and pueblo Indians living in the remote stretches of northern Arizona and New Mexico, rail travel certainly was faster, more convenient, and easier (if more expensive) than traveling by horse and buggy.

We know that the Navajo artist traveled to Flagstaff from Santa Fe for a July 4 PowWow in the 1940′s, and he probably made that trip more than once.  He also could have used the train to get to Gallup for the All-Indian Ceremonial. We also know that he took the train home to see his adoptive family, the Saganitso’s at least one time, and they drove into Flagstaff from Tuba City in their horse-drawn wagon to pick him up.

Santa Fe railroad locomotive

The trains were drawn by steam engines and had tablecloth-service in the dining cars, provided by Fred Harvey.  Harvey’s empire also included restaurants along the way like the one at the beautiful La Posada hotel in Winslow, opened in 1929,(Corrected date)  and recently restored. Tahoma, who was perennially broke, may never have had the opportunity to eat at one of the Fred Harvey establishments, but it is interesting to consider him riding the train from Santa Fe and Albuquerque, through Gallup.

La Posada Hotel in Winslow, photo by Vera Marie

I can picture him gazing out at the stark beauty of the painted desert near Winslow as the train chugged to Flagstaff.

Painted Desert

Or gazing up at the Navajo’s sacred mountains of the West–the San Francisco peaks.

San Francisco peaks, Flagstaff

Train travel is not what it used to be. Have you traveled in the west on trains? What is the most memorable image in your mind from that trip?

Photos of the Flagstaff railroad station and La Posada Hotel are by Vera Marie, the others are from Flickr, used by Creative Commons License. Please click on those photos to learn more about the photographers and see more of their work.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

*Santa Fe Downtown map

* The numbers on the map do not denote Tahoma stops. Click on the map to see WikiMaps list of Santa Fe attractions.

(See Stops One, Two and Three in the post directly beneath this one.)

Stop Four: The Oldest Church, Sisters of Loreto and St. Michael’s School

South along Washington Street (the east edge of the Plaza) your path will pass three Santa Fe attractions. First, the Sisters of Loretto Chapel with a mysterious staircase; then you come to the historic Chapel of San Miguel (which definitely was a landmark during Tahoma’s time); and next go down the nearby alley, East DeVargas,  past The Oldest House. Almost directly across the alley form The Oldest House stands the building where the Christian Brothers who ran St. Michael’s High School (later a University), had an infirmary. They allowed Tahoma to stay in the infirmary from time to time in exchange for doing some paintings for them. He worked on the top floor of the beautiful territorial style building.

Stop Five: St. Francis Cathedral

Now return to Alameda Avenue and go east. You will come to Cathedral Place. Follow that roughly north and you will find St. Francis Cathedral, where Quincy Tahoma’s funeral was conducted in 1956.

TO BE CONTINUED. We will talk another day about the many places that Quincy Tahoma lived in Santa Fe and perhaps we will take a trip to the cemetery where he is buried.

The photo above comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Click on the picture to see more by the same photographer.

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.

*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.

New Orleans Balconies

I’ve just returned from a few days in the wonderful, timeless city of New Orleans.  I could not help wondering if Quincy Tahoma ever saw that city?  The odds are slim, but the possibility persists.

The De La Salle Christian Brothers, a French Catholic religious order, founded St. Michael’s school in Santa Fe in 1859 as part of San Miguel Mission.  Originally, the school was open for boys only, and girls went to the Sisters of Loretto Academy nearby.  The street now known as Santa Fe Trail was called University in Quincy’s day because it ran beside the St. Michael’s school.

Quincy Tahoma found a friend in Brother Francis at St. Michaels during the 1950′s. In exchange for a place to stay when he was out of money and recovering from a bout of drinking, Quincy painted pictures for the Christian Brothers, which they still display in their living quarters on the campus of the new St. Michael’s High School on the east side of Santa Fe.  Quincy wrote a letter to Brother Francis after the former principal of the school had retired to the main office of the Santa Fe District of the Christian Brothers. That main office still stands in Lafayette, Louisiana.

In the letter, Quincy says that he might come down there next winter, and inquires whether they have any museums there. Harrison Begay says that he thinks Quincy once traveled to Louisiana, but we can find no other record of such a visit. We have also been unable to learn whether the Christian Brother’s archives contain any correspondence between Quincy and Brother Francis, or if any of his paintings made their way to Louisiana.

Of course, if you have any knowledge about this chapter of Quincy’s life, or if you can lead us to someone who might know, we would appreciate your help.  We are sharing what we know so that others may share with us what they know about Quincy Tahoma. The more stories we have, the better picture we can paint of his life.

Posted by Vera Marie Badertscher May 25, 2009

Photograph by Vera Marie Badertscher. All rights reserved.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Tesuque Drive-In Theater with Mural Quincy Tahoma Painted

August 31, 2004

“History is documented with ‘personal recollections.’”

Mona Ortiz Stetina wrote that in an e-mail to Anne Cavanaugh at the Santa Fe New Mexican.

We had written an article for the New Mexican telling people a little bit about Quincy Tahoma and our project and asked for their help. Along with the article, we printed a picture loaned to us by Dan Fannell whose step father Jim Wilson was one of the many people who had befriended Tahoma. A drive-in movie had provided a giant canvas for one of Quincy’s favorite subjects—a horse being spooked by a skunk. We did not know the name of the drive-in, but had been told it stood on Cerillos Road in Santa Fe.

Anne Cavanaugh did some research and came up with Pueblo Drive-In. Well, plenty of people wrote and e-mailed the New Mexican to set us straight. The theater actually was located at Tesuque Pueblo. It was the Pueblo Drive In, but we had the wrong location. Unfortunately, this, the largest “canvas” ever painted by Tahoma eventually was torn down along with the drive-in. Later, a successor, also called Pueblo, was built on Cerillos Road. Our thanks to the many people, like Mona and Elivra Vigel Ogard and John Rodriquez and others who delved into their childhood memories to straighten us out on this bit of history. History indeed is documented with personal recollections.

Do you know someone with personal recollections of Tahoma?  We would love to share that information here. And if you like reading about Quincy Tahoma and the making of his biography, please share by clicking on the social networking buttons below.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I grabbed the manila envelope from my husband as he walked in from the mailbox. I had eagerly looked forward to hearing the tapes of Charnell Havens interviewing Jean Wallace McSwain about dating Quincy Tahoma.

Jean evoked the Santa Fe of the 1940’s and the parties where young Anglos and young Indian artists met and talked about art and life. As Jean recounted the story of the unlikely romance of a young woman who had grown up in Connecticut and attended a private school with a Navajo who had grown up in a hogan and attended Santa Fe Indian School, Charnell asked about prosaic things like transportation. Jean said she and Quincy mostly walked around town, but sometimes he would come and pick her up in a taxi. Charnell wondered what the fare would have been, and Jean did not know for sure, but said it was cheap.

Meanwhile, back in Tucson, I had been reading Turn Left at the Sleeping Dog, John Pen La Farge’s collection of oral histories of Santa Fe. There I learned that you could take a taxi anywhere within the city limits for fifty cents. Now we can picture Quincy fishing two quarters out of his jeans pocket to pay the cab driver. You never know when a detail like the price of a taxi ride may fit into the story of a life.

Ice delivery? Milk in bottles? What detail captures your life long ago?

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.