Original Painting of a Pastoral Scene with Grazing Horses [SOLD]

Quincy Tahoma (1917-1956) Water Edge displayed a wide variety of styles in his paintings. He had a "quiet" period, a "peaceful" period and a "violent” period.  His quiet and peaceful periods were early and late in his career, with his violent period predominating for most of his art life.

Tahoma painted the proud Diné in everyday life on the reservation where he had grown up to the time of leaving for the Santa Fe Indian School at about age 12 or 13. This painting of a field of grazing horses is a scene he probably witnessed many times during his young life.  The horse has always, in modern times, been a treasure of the Navajo.  They take pride in their horses and embellish them with silver and turquoise and beautiful saddle blankets.

Here, a half dozen horses peacefully graze among the native grasses on the reservation.  Two large and prominent landscape features dominate the center of the painting but the focus by the artist was on the horses.  The painting was rendered in beautiful tones of warm colors, almost as if executed in pastel paints. 

The painting is double matted and framed in a gold-color frame.  It is signed in lower right Tahoma ’49 and the accompanying cartouche shows the buttes without horses, indicating they have moved on from the area.  Tahoma traditionally wrote a title and signed his name on the back of paintings.  This one was delivered to us already framed so we do not know if Tahoma wrote anything on verso.

Condition:  appears to be in original condition but has not been examined out of the frame.

Provenance: from a large collection of paintings from a New York estate

Recommended Reading: Quincy Tahoma, the Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist by Charnell Havens