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R. C. Gorman biography

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  • NAME: R. C. Gorman
  • OCCUPATION: Painter, Sculptor
  • BIRTH DATE: July 26, 1931
  • DEATH DATE: November 03, 2005
  • EDUCATION: Northern Arizona University, Mexico City College, San Francisco State University
  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Chinle, Arizona
  • PLACE OF DEATH: Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Full Name: Rudolph Carl Gorman

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Artist R.C. Gorman is arguably the first Native American artist to be internationally recognized as simply a major American artist.

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Synopsis

Artist R.C. Gorman descended from generations of Navaho craftsmen. After several years in the US Navy, his education, specifically a year at the Mexico City College, that fixed his desire to be an artist. From the 1970s, as his reputation spread throughout the USA and abroad. He is arguably the first Native American artist to be internationally recognized as simply a major American artist.

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Artist, born in Chinle, Arizona, USA. Descended from generations of Navaho craftsmen, holy men, and tribal leaders, he was encouraged by a teacher at a mission school to develop his talent for art. After several years in the US Navy, he attended Arizona State College (now Northern Arizona University), but it was a visit to Mexico (1958) and then a year at the Mexico City College (now University of the Americas) that fixed his desire to be an artist. After spending several years in San Francisco developing as a painter, he moved to Taos, NM. In 1965 he received a one-man exhibition in the Manchester Gallery there, and by 1968 his work was enjoying enough success that he bought the gallery, changed its name to Navajo Gallery, and began to exhibit and sell his own and other artists' work. It remained for many years as his residence, studio, and gallery, where he was often present to deal personally with the growing numbers of other artists and the public who came by. From the 1970s, as his reputation spread throughout the USA and abroad, he moved on from working with oil, acrylic, and pastel to lithographs, ceramics, and occasional sculptures. Although he usually drew on SW Native American themes, he transformed them by his art into more universally significant, and aesthetic, subjects. Reputed to be a genial, accessible man, known to be interested in food and cooking, and someone at home in the worlds of both his ancestors and international museums and academies, he is arguably the first Native American artist to be internationally recognized as simply a major American artist. Gorman died November 4, 2005, at a hospital in Albuquerque.

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