R. C. Gorman

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Lore & Background

R. C. Gorman was born in Chinle, Arizona, to Adele Katherine Brown and Carl Nelson Gorman. His father, Carl, was one of the original twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers who developed the unbreakable code used in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Gorman grew up in a traditional Navajo hogan and began drawing at age three. His grandmother helped raise him, recounting Navajo legends and enumerating his genealogy of artist ancestors, kindling his desire to become an artist. While tending sheep in Canyon de Chelly with his aunts, he drew on rocks, sand, and mud and made sculptures with clay, with his earliest subjects including Mickey Mouse and Shirley Temple. He credited a teacher, Jenny Lind at Ganado Presbyterian Mission School, for his inspiration to become a full-time artist. After high school, he served in the United States Navy before entering college, where he majored in literature and minored in art at Northern Arizona University. In 1958, he received the first scholarship from the Navajo Tribal Council to study outside the United States and enrolled in the art program at Mexico City College, where he learned of and was influenced by the work of Diego Rivera. He later studied art at San Francisco State University, where he also worked as a model. He was openly gay. Gorman had a professional art career from 1963 (his first public exhibition by an established gallery) until his death in 2005. He produced over 500 lithographic and serigraphic works, at least 28 bronze sculptures, and an unknown number of papercasts, ceramic editions, tapestries, glass etchings, and one-of-a-kind oil and acrylic paintings, oil pastel drawings, and sketches. In 1968, he borrowed money from his parents to purchase the Manchester Gallery in Taos, New Mexico, renaming it the Navajo Gallery—the first Native American-owned fine art gallery.

Reader's Guide

R. C. Gorman's significance lies in his role as a pioneering Native American artist who achieved mainstream recognition and commercial success. In 1973, he was the only living artist included in the "Masterworks from the Museum of the American Indian" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and two of his pieces were selected for the cover of the exhibit's catalog. The New York Times referred to him as "the Picasso of American-Indian art" in their review of that show. His work was explored in a PBS series on American Indian artists alongside Helen Hardin, Charles Loloma, Allan Houser, Joseph Lonewolf, and Fritz Scholder. Gorman's legacy includes opening the first Native American-owned fine art gallery in 1968, the Navajo Gallery in Taos. He received numerous honors, including R. C. Gorman Day in New Mexico (1979) and San Francisco (1986), New Mexico's Governor's Award of Excellence (1989), and a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars (2002). After his death in 2005, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson ordered flags flown at half-staff in his honor. His work continues to be recognized for its distinctive abstract realism, influenced by Mexican social realists such as Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo.

Did You Know?

• Gorman's father, Carl Nelson Gorman, was one of the original twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers who developed the unbreakable code used in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
• He began drawing at age three, and his earliest subjects included Mickey Mouse and Shirley Temple.
• In 1958, he received the first scholarship from the Navajo Tribal Council to study outside the United States, enrolling at Mexico City College.
• He authored four cookbooks (with accompanying drawings) called Nudes and Food.
• In 1973, he was the only living artist included in the 'Masterworks from the Museum of the American Indian' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.