Native American Artists and the Dunn Studio, 1932-1962 Pamela Krch University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected]
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University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2016-01-01 Cultural Sovereignty and Cultural Violence: Native American Artists and the Dunn Studio, 1932-1962 Pamela Krch University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the History Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Krch, Pamela, "Cultural Sovereignty and Cultural Violence: Native American Artists and the Dunn Studio, 1932-1962" (2016). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 872. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/872 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY AND CULTURAL VIOLENCE: NATIVE AMERICAN ARTISTS AND THE DUNN STUDIO, 1932–1962 PAMELA KAY KRCH Doctoral Program in Borderlands History APPROVED: Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D., Chair Ernesto Chávez, Ph.D. Yolanda Chávez Leyva, Ph.D. Melissa Warak, Ph.D. Charles Ambler, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Pamela Krch 2016 CULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY AND CULTURAL VIOLENCE: NATIVE AMERICAN ARTISTS AND THE DUNN STUDIO, 1932–1962 by PAMELA KAY KRCH, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2016 Acknowledgements Funding that contributed to my research included a grant from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University and the W. Turrentine Jackson Scholarship and Frances G. Harper Dissertation Research Award, both from the University of Texas at El Paso. Furthermore, I am indebted to many individuals. From the project’s outset, Jon Hunner, Andrea Orzoff, Donald Pepion, Dwight Pitcaithley, Stephanie Taylor, Elizabeth Horodowich, and Marsha Weisiger provided enthusiastic encouragement. As I continued my research and began writing, Jeffrey Shepherd and Ernesto Chávez were especially helpful as they suggested sources and commented on drafts; I thank them along with the other, equally valuable, members of my committee, Yolanda Chávez Leyva and Melissa Warak. Other scholars who provided assistance include the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Laboratory of Anthropology Librarian Allison Colborne, the Lab’s archivist, Diane Bird, the National Archives at Denver’s archivist Eric Bittner, and archivist Laura Holt at the School for Advanced Research. Gerald Nailor, Jr., Tony Abeyta, Aysen New, and Andy Ayze gave generously of their time, and for that I am most grateful. The support of my fellow graduate students, especially Aaron Waggoner, Maria Shrock, Amado Gúzman, George Matthews, Kris Klein, Cecilia Venable, Timothy Nelson, Heather Sinclair, and Jessica Bergen cannot be understated. Finally, the encouragement and support I received from my family, in particular my husband Eric, made all of the difference between success and failure. iv Abstract The early twentieth century engendered a period of profound change within the United States as industrialization, post-World War I miasma, and vigorous imperialism transformed the nation. The Southwest’s Santa Fe provided a haven for the influx of White scientists, affluent socialites, and artists who sought authenticity through reinvention. Lighting upon the neighboring Indian communities, White elites soon appropriated Native culture, production, and imagery, seeing these as sources for nationalism, commodification, and as outlets for reformist aims. Art educator Dorothy Dunn stands as exemplary of the latter, as she fervently believed that the new genre of Native American easel art answered the need for Native American cultural preservation as well as the authentic American counter to European cultural hegemony. During her 1932 to 1937 stewardship of the Santa Fe Indian School Studio, Dunn built on the earlier efforts of her educator, artist, and anthropologist cohort in order to firmly control and codify the Studio style. In effect, this model became the norm for Native American art for the following thirty years; moreover, Dunn and her cadre set in place the White-controlled framework that continues, to a lesser degree, to define American Indian art. Yet, this example of cultural imperialism involves more than Dunn and her White associates. Her Indian School students remain active players in this story as they, too, sought to negotiate the challenges and opportunities presented to them as they strove to carve out space for themselves as artists. Navajo painters such as Gerald Nailor, Narciso Abeyta, Quincy Tahoma, Harrison Begay, and Sybil Yazzie encountered expectations and biases that worked to restrict their self-expression. Yet, despite that they were able to create work that spoke to White and sometimes Native audiences. The canvases and murals they produced impart a wealth of information as they served to convey cultural communication, as platforms for resistance, and, not least, as evidence of the bitterness, love, and humor these artists felt as they engaged in the nascence of Native American fine art. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iiv Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Setting the Stage ...........................................................................................................25 Chapter 2: Harrison Begay, Navajo Cultural Broker .....................................................................60 Chapter 3: Gerald Nailor and the Art of Resistance ......................................................................88 Chapter 4: The Gendering of Quincy Tahoma ............................................................................113 Chapter 5: The Silent Stories of Navajo Women Painters Sybil Yazzie, Ruth Watchman, and Mary Ellen ..........................................................................................................................139 Chapter 6: The Changing Style of Narciso Abeyta .....................................................................159 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................177 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................191 Vita………………… ...................................................................................................................202 vi List of Figures Figure 3.1: Photograph of Gerald Nailor by Milton Snow, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs .......................................................................................................................................... 88 Figure 3.2: Gerald Nailor, Department of the Interior Building Mural, c. 1939, Washington DC ………………………………………………………………………………………………….102 Figure 3.3: Gerald Nailor, from J.B. Enochs, A Little Man's Family (Washington DC: U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, 1940) ………………………………………………….……………..103 Figure 3.4: Gerald Nailor, Navajo Tribal Council House Murals (excerpt), c. 1943, Window Rock, AZ ……………………………………………………………………………………….107 Figure 5.1: Ruth Watchman, Navajo Sun, 1934, tempera, Collection of Dorothy Dunn ……146 Figure 5.2: Mary Ellen, Navajo Women with Corn, 1941, Margretta Dietrich Collection …..148 Figure 6.1: Narciso Abeyta, c. 1935, Dorothy Dunn Kramer Papers, Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, New Mexico …………………………………………………………………………159 vii Introduction In the spring of 2008 my husband and I spent a week escorting family and friends around the Four Corners region near our home in southwestern Colorado, ending our vacation with a visit to Mesa Verde National Park outside of Cortez, Colorado. At the park’s excellent museum, I was immediately thunderstruck by a large and magnificent painting of horses—manes and tails flying. I believe I must have stood in front of it for twenty minutes at least; long enough, anyway, for the rest of my party to have nearly toured the museum. The image stayed with me for days. Upon my return home I eventually emailed the park staff in order to discover the artist’s name. They kindly replied: Gerald Nailor. As I began a cursory investigation into Nailor’s career and biography, it became clear that his was by no means a household name; indeed, relatively few people, even art aficionados, had heard of him. As I dug deeper into what little information I could find, I became increasingly intrigued not only by Nailor and his work, but by all of his fellow art students who had studied under Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School Studio. Dorothy Dunn’s 1932–1937 stewardship of the Santa Fe Indian School’s [SFIS] fine art Studio left a lasting and profound mark on American Indian art. The rigid, homogenized-Indian