1955 Going to the Chant, Courtesy of Martin Link

In our last blog post, Charnell talked about Tahoma’s peaceful scenes of animals and babies. He also painted peaceful scenes of Diné couples  riding across the desert, or large groups of people gathering for a sing.

A Navajo sing is a large gathering, usually away from any towns, when the Diné gather for ceremonies, generally healing ceremonies to restore the all important hozho (balance, harmony).

When Tahoma was about to start 7th grade at Santa Fe Indian School, he and some friends went to Chinle and were late returning to school. When the principal inquired, a girl wrote a letter back: ”…we are having celebration around here.  We still have so many things to attend around here, to help our folks as much as we can.” (Pg. 25, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist). The whole family was involved. They no doubt were having a sing, and Tahoma, starting 7th grade that year, was there storing away memories of a scene that would later be repeated in several paintings, including one enormous one.

Although we know that Tahoma never returned to live on the reservation after he graduated, he might have attended sings with friends in adulthood. At any rate, Navajo ceremonies were not a routine part of his life as they were for people living on the reservation, and yet the sing was one of the traditions of his people that he honored in his paintings.

In 2005, Amerind Foundation, near Dragoon Arizona, held a special display of  paintings by a group of American Indian Artists from mid-twentieth century.  The show included paintings by some of Tahoma’s friends from Santa Fe Indian School, Navajo artists like Harrison Begay, Gerald Nailor and Andy Tshinajinnie. The Amerind also prominently displayed a large Tahoma painting.

On the back wall of the gallery,  The Navajo Sing (1949) showed Navajo families gathering in the desert for a sing. They arrive by wagon or horseback, dogs trailing along beside the families. Those who have arrived are settling down in a semi circle, or preparing fires inside hogans. The painting contains about a hundred individual people and animals, each involved in his or her own activity. One woman, holding a small child, herds her sheep off to the side. A colt follows behind a rider on a horse. Open doors of a sweatlodge and a hogan show people crowded inside.

In the Tahoma book we said ( p. 117),

“The crowd of people and their animals fill the bottom half of the picture (the foreground and middle ground) while the scene stretches into bare space back to the unmistakable mitten formations of Monument Valley. The top third of the picture depicts an evening sky with red, stylized clouds. He rendered every figure in great detail and with skillful use of perspective that emphasizes the beauty of the Diné in their native landscape.  The painting is as full of life as it is of detail.”

Navajo Sing, now owned by the Amerind Foundation, was shown as a two-page spread in Southwest Indian Painting by Clara Lee Tanner, who said of Tahoma (pg. 117 of Southwest Indian Painting), “One of the most dynamic, imaginative, and gifted of Southwest Indian Artists was Quincy Tahoma. ”

In later years Arizona Highways magazine also published the painting. In a July 1956 edition of Arizona Highways, that published three  Tahoma paintings, editor Raymond Carlson introduced Tahoma by saying, “Though still a young man, Quincy Tahoma is in the very top rank of Navajo painters today.” (Page 164 Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist.)

We are very pleased that Amerind has invited Charnell and me to speak and sign copies of the book at the Museum next October. At that time they will display paintings by “Tahoma and Friends” and you will have a chance to visit this peaceful museum in southern Arizona and see one of Tahoma’s masterpieces, Navajo Sing.

You will see the complete painting Navajo Sing reproduced in Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, along with 170 other illustrations, many of paintings that have never been seen in public before. Have you pushed the Buy Now button? The book officially arrives within two weeks, so now is the time.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

When we think of an artist’s studio, the first thing that comes to mind is a high-ceilinged room with light streaming in the window, illuminating an easel. A model or a still life arrangement sits on a platform. The floor is spattered with paint and finished canvases lean against the walls. Tahoma’s reality was quite different.

Tahoma Painting

We learned where Tahoma painted by reading about The Studio, by interviewing friends of the Navajo artist, and by pictures that he handed out to friends. We found his many apartment addresses in old city directories.

After his years painting at The Studio at Santa Fe Indian School, Quincy Tahoma never moved back to Diné Bikeyah (Navajo Land).

By the time he left Santa Fe Indian School, Tahoma knew that he wanted to spend his life painting, and if he were going to be an artist rather than a rancher, he needed to stay in Santa Fe.

After graduation he stayed on at the school another year, unwilling to let go of the security blanket of the school with its ready supplies and place to paint. When he did decide to move out of the school, he was fortunate to have established some customers and important mentors. T. Harmon Parkhurst provided his first post-school studio space, a makeshift balcony in the photographer’s studio just off the Plaza of Santa Fe.

At the SIFS Studio, which was always underfunded and had no easels, Tahoma was used to spreading his preferred Strathmore paper on a table and bending over it to paint.  That habit enabled him to paint almost anywhere without fancy equipment. Furthermore Dorothy Dunn discouraged the reproduction of still life or live models as being too European–not real Indian painting, so Tahoma learned to paint from his imagination and images stored in his mind.

He lived in a succession of small apartments and rooming houses, always within walking distance of the Plaza, and those made do as a studio when he was not working in the Parkhurst photography studio. Off and on, he worked at the New Mexico Museum of Art where Kenneth Chapman had established the tradition of inviting young artists to paint, partly for the entertainment of the visitors. For a short period he worked at the Laboratory of Anthropology, then located behind the Palace of Governors on the Plaza.

When World War II started and most of his friends enlisted, Quincy, with his damaged left arm, was left behind, classified 4-F. Margretta Dietrich, a wealthy patron of Indian causes, became a  new supporter, buying up many of Tahoma’s paintings. She founded the Indian Club as a social meeting place and encouraged Tahoma to use space as a studio and gallery for his art.

He visited and painted in the studios and homes of other artists like Abel Sanchez at San Ildefonso Pueblo and Al Momaday at Jemez Pueblo and in Santa Fe with Navajo artist Harrison Begay, who says they were careful not to copy each other.

One year he spent several months in Albuquerque, but his drunken sprees reflected poorly on the shop that invited him there, and the shop owners prevailed upon Pop Chaleee and her husband to invite him to Scottsdale. In Scottsdale during two winters he worked at John Bonnell’s White Hogan on Main Street and also at Pop Chalee’s store/studio.

1953 The Navajo Scout, Courtesy of Mark O. Rosacker, was painted while Tahoma was in Santa Fe's US Indian Hospital

Wherever he was, Quincy Tahoma created art. He painted when he was in jail (but never while drunk). He painted when he was in the hospital.  He painted in a trailer while traveling in the Midwest with a Scottsdale trader. He never stayed long enough in one place to establish THE Quincy Tahoma studio, but instead, as with the images he painted, his studio was wherever he went.

Sticker on back of The Navajo Scout

What would you most like to know about Quincy Tahoma, the Navajo artist? Ask and we will do our best to answer.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

We know that Quincy Tahoma created hundreds of paintings. We know that he gave some away, or traded them for food or drinks or a place to sleep. But many, many people bought his paintings during his lifetime. We know because we have heard their stories.

How did this Navajo man, separated from his family as a youngster, living in what amounted to a foreign country, become a professional–a person who supported himself by selling his art? How did he learn to navigate the sophisticated art world of Santa Fe, Scottsdale, Oklahoma, California?

It started when he was very young. Indian boarding schools had a tradition of selling items made by their students.  By the time he was going to school in Santa Fe and studying art with Dorothy Dunn at the Studio, the school store was selling students’ art and sharing the proceeds with the student.  After deducting a small amount to cover the costs of paint and paper–Miss Dunn was always short of supplies at the Studio–the student artists could make some money.

During the 1930′s this was very important for Quincy Tahoma in order that he could have money for an occasional ice cream cone at a store near the school, or when he was a little older to buy that hair slick that attracted the girls, or even to go to a movie on a Saturday night, he needed some pocket money.

Buffalo Hunt, 1939, painted before Tahoma entered his senior year in high school. Courtesy of Tim R. Johnson.

Dorothy Dunn believed that it was important for fledgling artists to learn how to market their work, as well as how to master the techniques. She introduced them to the concepts of pricing paintings, taught them the importance of Galleries and Museums, and entered their work in contests. Fortunate students like Quincy Tahoma were selected to go to San Francisco to the Golden Gate Exposition in 1939. There he fully realized that he had become a professional artist.

The back of the 1939 buffalo hunt painting. It shows the $15 price and where it was painted (Santa Fe Indian School).

Dorothy Dunn was just part of a larger circle of people who worked to see that there would be a market for the art of her students. The Gallery at the Museum of New Mexico (now the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art) and the Laboratory of Anthropology held exhibits and promoted the works of the young Navajo and Pueblo artists in Santa Fe. The photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst invited Tahoma to paint inside the photography studio near the Plaza, and displayed Tahoma’s paintings in the window along with his own high-priced photography.

Tahoma participated in all of these venues. He made friends with the owners of galleries.  He also had friends among other artists, and they helped each other out. We were fascinated to learn that the well known painter Harrison Begay had organized several of his friends, including Tahoma into a show–probably the first totally Indian organized and sponsored show of their own art ever to be held.  It would no doubt have become an annual event, but World War II intervened.

Tahoma even distributed pictures of himself, signed in his fancy script, that showed him wrapped in a Navajo blanket and wearing concho silver.

One of our favorite images of Tahoma selling his art involves his own door-to-door efforts.  In the fifties, when his drinking binges kept him perennially broke, and he was living at the home of “Eppie” Montoya a few blocks from the Plaza, he would set out each day with several of his paintings rolled up and tucked under his arm.  He walked down the hill from Eppie’s house and visited the offices of businessmen in the area, and lawyers and judges whose offices were around the court house just north of the Plaza.

As book authors, we have our own marketing to do these days, and Tahoma is helping us. For one thing, we want to tell as many people as possible about our book. Instead of art gallery shows, we will have book signings. Instead of going door to door, we will talk to groups about Tahoma’s art and about the making of the book. In addition to traveling to several states, we will travel around the Internet giving interviews, writing guest blogs and supplying books to reviewers.  But Tahoma is helping us sell the book because his paintings will be displayed in the galleries and featured on slide shows when we talk to a group.

We would like to keep you up to date about where and when we will be talking and showing slides and signing books.  In a few day we will email the second issue  of News About Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, so if you have not yet subscribed, please sign up today for your own newsletter. We would not want you to miss any news.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A cocky Tahoma during the 1940's

Quincy Tahoma was a hit with the ladies. All through his life they flocked around him. Valentine’s Day might just have been his favorite holiday after Christmas, the date that he adopted for his birthday. Not that he did anything to discourage the attention.  Now we would not want to say he was vain, but while still a school boy, Tahoma did spend some of the money he made selling paintings on “hair slick.” Joe Sando, who grew up to become an expert on Pueblo history and author of many books, told me that the younger boys like Joe, used to sneak into Quincy’s dorm room at Santa Fe Indian School and “borrow” some of the pre-mousse hair stuff–most likely “Brillcreme, a little dab ‘l do you.” (If you are humming that advertising jingle, we know how old you are!) And the boy WAS good looking. Oh, my.  So many people have commented to us about his thick, wavy dark hair and his friendly smile. It is captured well in photographs that he liked to hand out to friends.

Quincy Tahoma. Check out his right eyebrow.

We can’t say for sure, but the well known photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst, who gave Tahoma a place to work in his studio near the Santa Fe Plaza, probably snapped some of those pictures.

Because so many of these photos, and others have come back to us, we know that the Navajo painter handed them out frequently. Now does that sound like a modest, retiring gentleman to you? Nah. Quincy Tahoma KNEW he was good looking. The picture shown here came from the daughter of his old friend, Kee Yazzie, but most of the pictures we retrieved came from old girlfriends.

Charnell wrote about a visit with one of the first people she found who knew Tahoma personally. Quincy had a serious, and rather surprising, romance with Jean Wallace (McSwain). A couple of people have told us stories about a Navajo girlfriend at Santa Fe Indian School, but after he left school, as far as we know, most of his girlfriends were non-Indian.  There is a romantic tale about the attraction between Tahoma and a quiet Pueblo girl which her mother put an end to, but that girlfriend, now a widow and a grandmother, is not talking.

Nina Bogard, on the other hand, was happy to talk to us and tell us about her summer fling at a guest ranch.  She was only 16 and thought that Tahoma was in his mid-twenties, but he was actually about thirty. They both enjoyed horses and riding and spent happy days on the ranch where her mother had a summer job. She gave us photographs and a long letter that he wrote to her.

Quincy and Nina in 1946

According to Harrison Begay, Taoma had a fling with a rich white woman from the East who came to New Mexico looking for sexual adventures with the “exotic” Native American men.  Artist Begay told us the story about the woman who took Quincy on a merry ride (quite literally) through northern New Mexico and Arizona. Quincy thought she was serious, and bought a ring and took a train back east to track her down, but she turned him down and sent him back to New Mexico.

You see, Quincy Tahoma was a hopeless romantic. He really wanted to get married, and he fervently pursued one possible mate after another, never with success.  He painted pictures for them, gave them his photograph, gave them elaborate gifts, somehow managed to hide his drinking sprees from them, but he remained single to the end of his life.

You can learn more about the romantic side of Quincy Tahoma in our book, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, published by Schiffer Books in April 2011. We even print a couple of pages from the love letter to Nina, and show you photographs of  Jean and Nina.

Do you have any theories as to why Tahoma apparently did not  pursue Navajo girls or women? He always claimed that he did not know his clan, although we believe he did learn as an adult that he was named for his mother’s clan. Would that have stopped him? Was he attempting to fit in to the white society? Did he not feel worthy of diné families because of his drinking and because he lived in a different society? We would like to hear your theories.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1942 print Pueblo Indian Women Knitting for the Red Cross

Very few people today have not heard of Navajo Code Talkers.  It may even be taken for granted that codetalkers are among the veterans who ring the Stock Market opening bell on this Veteran’s Day, 2010.

But for nearly 50 years, very few knew about the linguistic feats of the Diné speakers who used their own language to befuddle the Japanese code breakers during World War II.  (Members of other Indian nations were involved, but the Navajo were in the majority.)  USA Today interviewed our friend, Zonnie Gorman.

It didn’t help that the men were told by the military not to talk about their service and their work remained classified until 1968, says Zonnie Gorman, the daughter of a Code Talker who has recorded an oral history of their work. Her father, Carl Gorman, was one of the original 29 who devised the code.

“Twenty years ago, if you said ‘Navajo Code Talkers,’ the majority of people would say, ‘Who?’ ” Gorman says. “At least today the majority of people have at least heard of them.”

Carl Gorman (1907-1998), unlike the dozens of Code Talkers who returned to anonymity on the reservation, became a world-famous artist and teacher of art.  Perhaps it was the involvement of this artist in the Code Talkers that confused biographers who claimed that Quincy Tahoma was a Code Talker.

You will find, in reference after reference, that Tahoma served in World War II, and in more than one, you will read that he was a Code Talker. Unfortunately, people still tend to assume that if a Navajo was in World War II, he was a Code Talker.  Not so.  While an enormous percentage of young men enlisted–in 1942, it is said the entire Santa Fe High School Football Team marched to the recruiting office together–only 400 served in the secretive Code Talkers.  We have even read that the artist Harrison Begay was a Code Talker, even though the Navajo speakers were used in the Pacific, and Begay served in Europe. The myths die hard.

We began to question the liklihood of Tahoma’s armed forces service as we talked to many people who knew him and learned that he had a crippled arm. When we were able to interview Harrison Begay, who was probably Tahoma’s closest friend, Begay stated unequivocally that Tahoma wanted to enlist, but was the equivalent of 4-F. Little by little, we pieced together Tahoma’s life during the war years, and he was in Santa Fe all that time. This was our first strong indication that we needed to confirm every so-called “fact” we read.

Kee Yazzie, one of Tahoma's close friends

Tahoma graduated in 1940 and stayed primarily in Santa Fe. Surely it was emotionally wrenching to watch all of his friends going off to war. He contributed to the war effort in different ways–creating a winning poster in the Treasury Department’s  Buy Bonds campaign, and another for the Red Cross. (The 1942 painting is the property of the Santa Fe Chapter of the American Red Cross, and we purchased prints from them.)

He attended parties for the wounded servicemen sent back to Santa Fe Indian Hospital for recovery. He painted a picture of a soldier returning to his family on the Navajo reservation. (It is now at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.) And at one point he was sought for a top secret job….but that is a long story, only part of which we have uncovered.

We want to send good wishes to all the American Indian men and women who served so willingly in the wars of this country.  When we asked Ramos Sanchez, who was in the Navy in the Pacific, why the Pueblo Indians were so eager to enlist, he looked at us as though we were crazy. “They attacked our country,” he said. The long history of disputes over treaties and battles over territory were forgotten. Thank you, Harrison and Ramos and all the others who have served OUR country in World War I and II and afterwards.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

In the unlikely location of Dragoon, Arizona–hidden away south of the I-10 Freeway that zips between Tucson and the New Mexico Border, the Amerind Foundation goes about its archaeological and cultural business.  The charming museum is open to visitors and we were delighted to find that they own one of the most spectacular paintings Tahoma ever painted. The huge painting of Navajo families, their wagons, horses and dogs, gathering for a Sing was reproduced in Arizona Highways many years ago.

In a special exhibit featuring some of the graduates of Dorothy Dunn’s studio, Amerind showed off some of the paintings they own that were done by Harrison Begay, Andy Tsihnahjinnie, Tahoma, and other outstanding painters of mid-twentieth century.

Most exciting for us was the short film clips that had been made by a couple who visited Santa Fe in the 1940′s. This gave us a chance to actually see Tahoma at work–drawing a figure in pencil before painting it in, or quickly sketching a small rabbit with his paint brush.  These short films are the property of the National Archives, and we lost track of the Amerind copies after they were loaned to the Navajo Museum in Window Rock.

At any rate, we recommend the cultural oasis of Amerind.  Here’s a nice article about Amerind by Jane Eppinga that appeared recently on line.

And what is YOUR favorite museum of American Indian art and craft? Maybe you can add to our list.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

By 2004, we had received encouragement from people like Bruce Bernstein (then at the American Museum and now at SWAIA-Santa Fe Indian Market); Peter Iverson, professor and author of several books on the Navajo; Jim Bialac, leading collector of Indian art; Mark Bahti in Tucson and Ray Dewey in Santa Fe, both leading Indian traders….and the list kept growing.

But more important than encouragement, we had begun to assemble solid facts. Harrison Begay gave Mark Bahti information. Charnell had discovered Jean McSwain, who had been a girlfriend of Tahoma. Charnell discovered the connection between Tahoma and the Christian Brothers of Santa Fe. And the contacts continued to pile up as we filled in the timeline of his life.

We knew we had to publish, when in 2003, out of the blue, a local publisher’s acquisition editor asked if I had any book ideas. Then I met a university press editor and she was very interested in the book and early in 2004, offered us a contract. Soon after, I had the opportunity to talk to another regional publisher who had some interest, and also sent a proposal to a national publisher.  All of these fell through, but with favorable reviews from university reviewers, we could see that there was going to be interest in the book, so we kept filling in the blanks and started actually writing chapters.

We wrote an article that was published in American Indian Art magazine, wrote an article for the Santa Fe newspaper, and were interviewed by the Gallup Trader newspaper and the Navajo Times. And the web site for Tahoma drew more contacts and more information.

Ultimately we tried another private publisher and two more university presses–one of whom took nearly two years to make a final decision– before we found the right match.

But finally, we have found the perfect home for the Tahoma biography, Schiffer Books in Atglen Pennsylvania. Stay tuned as we prepare the manuscript, double check all the photographs of Tahoma’s paintings, and bring you a copy of Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist — a title which may change–another reason to stay tuned.

Please use the comment space to tell us what YOU would like to know about our research and writing of the Tahoma biography.  What do you find most interesting?  Or do you have something to add to our knowledge base? Join in the discussion. We would love to have you be a partner.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

One key resource came when we asked Mark Bahti to see if he could find out from his friend Harrison Begay if Begay knew anything about Tahoma. Bahti is the 2nd generation owner of Bahti Indian Arts in Tuson, and Harrison Begay used to stay with the Bahti family for a time each year. We knew Tahoma and Begay had both gone to school at Santa Fe Indian School. Since Navajos were a minority in the predominantly Pueblo Indian school, we figured Navajos might have stuck together.  Bahti wrote to Begay, and Begay sent a lengthy, hand-written letter back with all he could remember and find out about

Vera Marie with Harrison Begay in Santa Fe 2006

Tahoma.  Unfortunately, he said, “I found out I didn’t know very much about Quincy Tahoma.”  We knew the feeling. Among the things he wrote to Bahti, was his recollection that Quincy was born not far from Tuba City in a place  near Elephant Feet. This was marginally helpful, since there are at least two Elephant Feet locations in Arizona on the Navajo Reservation, but one is near Tuba City.

We had a false lead when someone suggested that Tahoma was born at Shonto. I drove there and talked to people at the trading post, which is in the bottom of a pretty little canyon, but this was a dead end as far as information was concerned. We contacted Dr. William Adams, who grew up at Shonto and wrote about it, and he had no recollection of Tahoma being from there.

Our second big break came when Mark Rosacker of New Mexico found out about our work, and volunteered to help with research into Tahoma’s family.  Our third major source of information, which dove-tailed with Mark’s work, came from the United States National Archives in the Denver office, where they keep at least some of the school records from Santa Fe Indian School.  More about Mark and the archives in the another post.

Posted by Vera Marie Badertscher

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.