Frederick J. Dockstader, a long-time student of the culture of the Southwest, said of the young Gorman’s work what holds true of all three, that he broke “out of the old style Indian School art shell…to create a bridge between the traditional and the avant-garde,” (Quoted in Lester, Biographical Directory of Native American Painters, pp. 205). Born on the Navajo reservation, the son of the Navajo code talker and artist, Carl Gorman, Rudolph Carl Gorman, better known as “R. C.,” was influenced by a strict Catholic schooling and the U. S. Navy. He admits to finding himself as an artist, however, while on a study trip to Mexico, where he was influenced by Orozco and Rivera, and more directly by Francisco Zuniga. The early Gorman lithograph, “Indian Woman and Pottery,” is therefore an expression of the direction in which, at the time, a brand of Indian art was headed.
R. C. Gorman
