Cliffor Brito and his custom painting

It was certainly an unusual friendship, the jailer and the prisoner.  Or was it?!!

Quincy Tahoma seemed to make friends everywhere he went, and the Santa Fe jail was no exception.  As a 1950s frequent guest due to public intoxication, the young Navajo endeared himself to the guard, Clifford Brito, who let the artist out of his cell to perform janitorial duties and to paint.

Tahoma showed his gratitude by painting a beautiful scene of a brave rounding up horses.  The art work was custom designed to fit over the doorway of the jailer’s mobile home and  Brito treasured that painting until his death in 2008.

You can view Clifford Brito and his painting in the slide show on the home page of  the Tahoma web site. I took this picture when I interviewed him in 2004 during a research trip to New Mexico.

Do you know of other instances of jailers and prisoners becoming friends? Have you heard any other jail-time stories about Quincy Tahoma?  We were told, for instance, that he was briefly incarcerated in Indiana or Illinois while on a road trip with a friend, but the details of that adventure are scant.

Photograph by Charnell Havens. All rights reserved.

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