Original Painting “Great Spirit Let My Corn Grow” [SOLD]

“One of the most dynamic, imaginative, and gifted of Southwest Indian Artists.”—Clara Lee Tanner, 1973.

Tahoma attended the Santa Fe Indian School for four years, from 1936-1940, entering in the seventh grade. He was a student at the same time as Harrison Begay, Pablita Velarde, Geronima Montoya, Andy Tsihnahjinnie, and Gerald Nailor, and studied under the tutelage of Dorothy Dunn at The Studio.

When World War II broke out, he entered the service and served overseas, returning to Santa Fe where he spent the remainder of his short life.

Tahoma 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 Diné man praying for rain for his corn is one very good example of his quiet or peaceful period paintings.

In this painting, Tahoma used harmonious and rich colors in clean-cut and graceful lines, with impeccable draftsmanship. He was meticulous in his research for subject matter—clothing, landscape, horse features, etc. He was known to paint rather rapidly, but the process of painting was preceded by much thought and research of the subject he had chosen.

Tahoma developed a unique signature for his paintings. In the lower right corner of each painting, he drew a cartouche or small painting reflecting what happened next, following the scene in the present painting. He called this the next chapter. In this painting the cartouche shows the farmer riding away on his horse, having made his plea for rain. The base plane for the cartouche provided a spot for his name and date—in this case Tahoma 46.

Provenance:This painting was amassed by a brother and sister by the name of Haas from St. Petersburg, Florida who traveled to the Southwest in the 1930s and 1940s, and purchased the paintings from students of the Santa Fe Indian School. The Haas' passed the collection to Ida Cross who, in turn, gave them to Mrs. Hull, the mother of Robert Hull, from whom Adobe Gallery acquired them. This painting was shown in the Santa Fe Indian School Art 1920-1930 show May 7, 2004 until June 15, 2004 presented at adobe gallery Santa fe.

Reference: American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas, by Dorothy Dunn. The University of New Mexico Press, 1968.