About the Artist

(1917-1956) This Navajo painter was born in Tuba City, Arizona.  He was educated at The Studio, a division of the Santa Fe Indian School from 1936 to 1940.

Tahoma worked as a shepherd, a muralist, a Hollywood painter and a poster maker.

His early artwork reflected his life as a shepherd, depicting pastoral images and scenes, such as sheep, Navajos on horseback and mothers tending to children. His paintings demonstrated his ability to depict movement and action. Tahoma began focusing on movement as a theme in the mid 1940's, creating paintings of buffaloes and beasts. He took every opportunity to depict bloody scenes in his early works. Later paintings were not action oriented. Instead they emphasized the peaceful Navajo people in genre scenarios.

In 1939 Tahoma exhibited at the Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe and was touted as a promising new artist. His work was exhibited at the Museum of New Mexico in 1949, the Oklahoma Museum of Art in 1978, the Koogler McNay Art Museum in Texas in 1990 and the Heard Museum in Phoenix in 1996.