Quincy Tahoma (1921–1956) was a Navajo painter from Arizona and New Mexico.

Biography

Youth

Quincy Tahoma was born near

Tuba City, Arizona Tuba City ( nv, ) is an unincorporated town in Coconino County, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, United States. It is the second-largest community in Coconino County. The population of the census-designated place (CDP) was 8,611 at the 2010 cen ...

on Christmas Day 1921. Tahoma means "Water Edge".Quincy (Water Edge) Tahoma (1921–1956).
''AskArt.'' (retrieved 18 May 2009) As a young boy he became familiar with many religious and traditional chants and rituals. He also was known for creating "

sand painting Sandpainting is the art of pouring coloured sands, and powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, or pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed or unfixed sand painting. Unfixed sand paintings have a long es ...

s." As a boy he spent much of his time hunting and fishing, and later in life he drew much of his artistic inspiration from his boyhood experiences.

Santa Fe (Dorothy Dunn Studio)

Tahoma studied art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 1936 to 1940, where he attended the

Santa Fe Indian School The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...

. He was one of many Navajo painters among the most successful artists to be trained by Dorothy Dunn at the Studio, at the

. Other Navajo painters in that program at the time included Harrison Begay, Gerald Nailor, Sr. and Andy Tsinajinnie.

Style

Early in his career, his paintings were serene and soothing in tone, but increasingly they had subject matter of bloody wars and men killing animals. In retrospect, Tahoma's subjects were traditional Indian pursuits such as riding, fishing, and hunting, and he also painted distinctive landscape scenes. He was known for his brilliant colors and precise lines along with the two-dimensional disposition of his work reflected the nature of American Indian painting in the American Southwest at that time. His imaginative style and elegant designs distinguished him from his peers. Rather than posing his subjects in a static manner, Tahoma painted them in action. For early 20th-century, studio-taught painting, Tahoma incorporated more action and varied techniques in his work. “One of the most dynamic, imaginative and gifted of Southwest Indian artists was Quincy Tahoma. He also revealed in his works the extreme rhythm and decorative feelings that are essentially Indian. Tahoma lived the life of an average Navajo boy, herding sheep and riding horseback,” wrote art historian

Clara Lee Tanner Clara Lee Tanner (née Clara Lee Fraps; May 28, 1905 – December 22, 1997) was an American anthropologist, editor and art historian. She is known for studies of the arts and crafts of American Indians of the Southwest.Lytle-Webb, Jamie (1989). ...

Career

Tahoma spent most of his life in Santa Fe, working on hundreds of paintings over two decades from the mid-1930s to 1956 as a Navajo painter and muralist. It is of much debate if Quincy Tahoma was also one of the Navajo

Code talkers A code talker was a person employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is now usually associated with United States service members during the world wars who used their k ...

, who played such a critical part in the winning of World War II in the Pacific. It is believed to some that Tahoma joined the armed forces and served in the Signal Corps during World War II and that after the war, he returned to the Navajo Reservation and became a successful artist.

Collections

His work is in the public collections of the following institutions: *

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Ame ...

Cantor Arts Center The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...

, Stanford University *

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...

* Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art *

Philbrook Museum of Art Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (formerly the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology) is an anthropology museum located in Berkeley, California, on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. History Founded in 1901 under the pa ...

Death

He died of alcoholism in November 1956 in Santa Fe. He left behind a tremendous legacy of art that is still remembered by those familiar with the field. Due in large measure to his premature death, Tahoma's contribution to Native American art, as well as the triumphs and tragedies in his life, have remained somewhat invisible to the generations that followed.

References

Baderscher, Vera Marie , and Charnell Havens. "Quincy Tahoma of Santa Fe ." ''American Indian Art Magazine.'' 2006: 48-57.

External links

Quincy Tahoma at AskArt, with images

Quincy Tahoma website maintained by researchers of his forthcoming biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tahoma, Quincy Navajo painters Painters from New Mexico People from Coconino County, Arizona 1921 births 1956 deaths Painters from Arizona 20th-century Native Americans