Art Expo 2008 Hall of Fame

R.C. GORMAN The New York Times once called R.C. Gorman the “Picasso of American Indian art.” The artist’s work and personality have exerted an indelible presence on the Taos and northern New Mexico art scenes that has spread to every corner of the globe.

Internationally, Gorman was one of the foremost American Indian artists in recent history.

He was born Rudolph Carl Gorman on July 26, 1931, in Chinle, Ariz., the son of the late Carl Gorman—also a famed Navajo painter and a member of the World War II Code Talkers—and the late Adele Katherine Brown. From an early age, it was expected that, like his father, Gorman would become an artist.

Throughout his career, Gorman carved new pathways for American Indian artists, who, prior to the late 1960s, were often forced into certain types of art by collectors and by a market that relied on a stereotype of stoic portraits and colorful dancers rooted in the Santa Fe Indian School style.

For a Diné (person of Navajo descent) who painted strong abstracts and elegant figure studies and refused to be pigeon-holed into a certain type of art, it wasn’t easy to sell in a genre-driven market.

That might be one of the reasons Gorman decided to take a bold step and open the first American Indianowned fine-art gallery in 1968.

As a boy, he herded sheep with his aunts in Canyon de Chelly where he used to draw on rocks and in the sand and mud. His first sculpture was in clay, depicting subjects such as Mickey Mouse, Shirley Temple and automobiles. Gorman was also notorious for getting into trouble; many times he was caught drawing pictures of nude women.

After graduating from high school, he studied art at Northern Arizona University and San Francisco State University. In 1958, he received a grant from the Navajo Tribal Council to study art at Mexico City College where he was deeply influenced by the work of Diego Rivera. He made his name as a distinctive voice during the 1960s surge of interest in American Indian art.

Before settling in Taos, N.M., Gorman’s life had been an individual struggle against poverty and prejudice. It was an environment of silence with little communication with the outside world. His parents endowed him with the gifts of a heritage rich in culture and the talents of generations of remarkable people. His ancestors had been silversmiths, sandpainters, holy men and early tribal leaders. As he soared through the ranks of the art world, he found himself in a social circle with Hollywood royalty. His rambunctious personality was as tempestuous as the times, and his voracious appetite for art led him to collect Picasso, Henry Moore, Miro, Chagall, Dali, Rodin, Zuniga, Sequeiros and Diego Rivera as well as a host of regional artists from the Taos area.

Gorman was an artist of many mediums. His stylized images of Indian women and motifs in acrylics, oils, stone lithography, ceramics and sculpture won him various accolades. In 1973, he was honored as the only living artist to be in the Masterworks of the American Indian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Gorman published several essays on Mexican artists, petroglyphs and cave paintings. He also published a series of books on cooking and art. His friends included film stars, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his work was collected by Barry Goldwater, Gregory Peck, Erma Bombeck, Lee Marvin and Andy Warhol among others.

Gorman was an inspiration to many with particular compassion for young artists. A great man in every sense of the word, he died on Nov. 3, 2005, and was laid to rest on his property in Taos.

Page 14 • Artexpo Hall of Fame 2008 • Art Business News