Original Navajo Painting of a Horse Escaping a Lasso by Quincy Tahoma [SOLD]

C4305C-paint.jpg

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Quincy Tahoma, Diné of the Navajo Nation Painter
  • Category: Paintings
  • Origin: Diné of the Navajo Nation
  • Medium: watercolor
  • Size:
    11-1/4” x 7-1/2” image;
    17-1/4” x 12-3/4” framed
  • Item # C4305C
  • SOLD

Anyone who is familiar with early Native painters will immediately recognize that this painting was made by Diné artist Quincy Tahoma.  It’s a classic Tahoma image—rousing, powerful, and crafted with incredible skill. Tahoma excelled at creating images like this one, in which people clash with animals in the barren desert.  Here, we see a horse escaping a lasso as two men on horseback observe the action from afar. Overhead, a single bird crosses a clear sky. The painting is dated 1949—seven years before Tahoma’s unfortunately early passing.

Tahoma’s animals are always excellent.  This one in particular is as strong as any we’ve seen.  This horse feels absolutely lifelike as it bounds toward the viewer.  One hind leg pushes into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust and propelling the animal up and away from whomever is trying to catch it.  Its head turns left, giving the viewer a perfect profile view. Its magnificent mane extends in all directions. The lasso around its neck winds up and around, into the clear sky.  Tahoma’s diagonal perspective must have been challenging, but he somehow managed to make it look easy. This is an exceptional Diné painting that deserves the consideration of anyone who appreciates Quincy Tahoma’s incredible technical abilities.

Artist Signature - Quincy Tahoma, Water Edge (Near Water)The painting is signed and dated Tahoma ‘49” in lower right.  Tahoma’s signature cartouche shows the horse bucking a man off its back.  The painting is framed in a simple wood frame.

Quincy Tahoma (1917-1956) was a highly skilled, influential Diné painter who lived a short life but made a significant impression in the world of Native art.  Dorothy Dunn praised his talents in her book American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas:  “Tohoma’s [sic] style changed from serenity to one expressive of near violence—from quiet, pastoral scenes and orderly ceremonial patterns to highly agitated portrayals of animals, hunts, and battles that glorified struggle and cruelty.  Yet it is the latter work for which he is most recognized, and which extends his natural powers of draftsmanship and imagination. Through his individual studies of foreshortening and anatomy, Tohoma [sic] won for his pictures high praise from academically trained artists of note, and the admiring response of the public.  Whatever one may think of these later paintings as Indian art, he must recognize the command of techniques and devices of the artist’s own making which convey the opposition and impact of brutal contests in all sorts of situations on the hunting ranges of the old days.” Tahoma passed away in 1956, at just 39 years of age.

Condition: this Original Navajo Painting of a Horse Escaping a Lasso by Quincy Tahoma is in excellent condition

Provenance: private New Mexico collection

Recommended Reading: American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas by Dorothy Dunn

Relative Links: NavajoNative American PaintingsQuincy Tahoma

Close up view of a section of this painting.