The Southwest will sorely miss R.C. Gorman, the talented Navajo artist whose stylized works captured the subtle hues of the region’s terrain and reflected the beauty of its indigenous people.
Gorman, born in Chinle, Ariz., died at 74 Thursday at an Albuquerque hospital, where he had battled a blood infection and pneumonia.
Gorman was famous for his paintings, sculptures and lithographs of ample-figured Native American women, often draped with shawls or blankets. He was the son of a World War II Navajo code talker and began drawing at age 3. A teacher, Jenny Lind of the Ganado Presbyterian Mission School, inspired him toward his life’s work. “She gave me lessons in art history and different mediums and always encouraged me,” Gorman had recalled in one interview. “I guess she was the most influential teacher that I ever had.”
After serving four years in the Navy during the Korean War, Gorman returned to Northern Arizona University to study literature and art. A year-long scholarship took him to Mexico, where he studied the murals of Tamayo, Orozco, Rivera and Siquieros. This led him to create works reflecting the people of his own heritage, and Gorman blazed a trail for Native American artists to enter the mainstream art world.
“He never lost touch with his Navajo soul,” his sister, Zonnie Gorman, said after the artist’s death. “He never lost touch with his roots, and that kept him very humble.”
Gorman alternated between San Francisco and Taos for some years before settling in Taos in 1968. His works became extremely popular with such collectors as Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Andy Warhol.
Gorman, who loved to cook, also authored four cook books called “Nudes and Food,” which featured recipes and drawings. The New York Times once praised him as “the Picasso of American art,” but R.C. Gorman stood out on his own.
