R. C. Gorman, Painter Of Strong Navajo Women
Hyfler/Rosner
November 5, 2005 Saturday
HEADLINE: R. C. Gorman, Painter Of Strong Navajo Women
BYLINE: By MARGALIT FOX
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R. C. Gorman, an internationally prominent Navajo artist
whose portraits of voluptuous women in flowing traditional
dress embodied the American Southwest for collectors around
the world, died on Thursday at a hospital in Albuquerque. A
longtime resident of Taos, N.M., he was believed to be in
his mid-70's.
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico announced the death. The
cause was pneumonia following a blood infection for which
Mr. Gorman had been hospitalized since September.
Mr. Gorman was best known for his paintings, sculptures and
lithographs depicting American Indian women -- typically
corpulent, barefoot and wrapped in shawls or blankets. From
the mid-1970's on, his work graced the walls of galleries
and corporate offices around the country and was
disseminated even more widely on posters, notecards and
calendars.
While some critics dismissed Mr. Gorman as a commercial
artist who prized quantity over quality, others praised his
flowing line; his warm, saturated colors; and the strength,
spirituality and universality of his subjects. In 1973, his
work was featured in the exhibition ''Masterworks From the
Museum of the American Indian'' at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art.
Mr. Gorman's work was popular with celebrity collectors,
among them Elizabeth Taylor, Lee Marvin, Gregory Peck,
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Erma Bombeck. It was also acquired
by Governor Richardson, Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale and
Andy Warhol. Warhol painted Mr. Gorman several times.
Born into modest circumstances on a Navajo reservation in
Arizona, Mr. Gorman lived his later years in self-styled
bohemian splendor. His sartorial taste ran to headbands and
custom-tailored Hawaiian shirts; his personal art
collection, it was widely reported, ran to Matisse, Monet
and Chagall.
Rudolph Carl Gorman was born in Chinle, Ariz., most likely
in the early 1930's, though he was publicly evasive about
the date. His father, Carl, was a respected artist who was
also famous for his work as a Navajo code talker in World
War II.
The younger Mr. Gorman, always called R. C., attended local
schools on the reservation and, after a stint in the Navy,
traveled to Mexico to study art. There, he fell under the
spell of artists like Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo.
''Here were these great Mexican artists painting women
grinding corn and working in the fields,'' he told The
Austin American-Statesman in 1994. ''I thought, 'This is
just like my people.' Instead of trying to paint European, I
started painting like a Mexican, I guess, except that I was
using Navajos for my subject matter.''
After moving to Taos in the 1960's, Mr. Gorman opened the
Navajo Gallery there. By the mid-1970's, he had refined the
subject matter that would make him world famous.
''I don't draw the 'ideal' woman who would fit in Playboy
bunny underwear,'' he told the Austin newspaper. ''Most
women aren't like that. I draw beautiful women who are
sometimes fat and have calluses on their feet.''
Mr. Gorman is survived by a brother, Don Mitchell, of
Chinle; and four sisters: Donna Scott of Chinle; Shirley
Beecher of Black Mountain, Ariz.; Zonnie Gorman of Gallup,
N.M.; and Carla Anderson of Kaibeto, Ariz., The Associated
Press reported.