AUCTIONS Scottsdale Art Auction 2015 Navajos

211 Navajos

Category Western Americana
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 500,000.00 - 800,000.00 USD
Navajos
Artist: Russell, Charles M.Date of Birth: 1864-1926
Medium: Watercolor, Gouache and Graphite
Dimensions: 19 1/4 x 27 3/4 inches
Signed: Signed lower left and skull

From the The Kennedy Quarterly: When Charles M. Russell first visited the Southwestern States in 1913 the Navajo Indians were a peaceful, settled pastoral people, noted for their fine weaving, and their silver jewelry. The latter art was probably taught to them by the Mexicans during the previous century. Only a little more than half a century earlier, the Navajos had led a very different existence. They were among the most warlike of the tribes in the area, and treaties made with them were soon broken. In 1863, they suffered overwhelming defeat at the hands of troops under Colonel ÔKitÕ Carson, and almost all their flocks were killed, destroying their means of livelihood. Many Navajos were taken prisoner to Fort Sumner at the Bosque Redondo on Rio Pecos, New Mexico where they were kept in captivity for a number of years. Plans were made to send them to the Indian territory in present-day Oklahoma, but they were eventually allowed to return to the Southwest, and the United States Government gave them flocks of sheep and goats to begin a new life. This watercolor by Russell dates from about 1914, a period when his work in this medium had become very scarce, but of unusual quality. These horsemen ride with a pride and independent spirit that recalls their more warlike past rather than their peaceful present. Russell may well, as quote from The Kennedy Quarterly suggests, have chosen a moment before the treachery of the ÒLong Walk,Ó in which eight thousand Navajo, after witnessing CarsonÕs complete devastation of one of their holiest places, Canyon de Chelly, were forced to walk three hundred miles to Fort Sumner. However, the blankets draped over the horses are colorful, geometric, utilitarian weavings that draw the viewerÕs eye as they pop off the paper. The vibrant red was not a pre-contact color and the pattern here is reminiscent of eye-dazzler blankets woven after 1880. So Russell may, indeed, intend us to see these as Navajo after the Long Walk, upholding the dignity of the Dine_Ñwhich is what the Navajo call themselves. Moving through the desert, these are lean, hard, sinewy men on tough, compact ponies. Scouting, huntingÑmaybe a bit of bothÑor simply moving from place to place, they have a sense of purpose and a kind of chivalric bearing, as if they are errant knights on some errand. Russell saw the Old West this way: men, native and white, were sufficient unto themselves, subject to their own codes of honor and responsible for any breaches. These Dine_ command the scene, the landscape, the land. They sit higher than the mountain at right and tower over the horizon. The desertÑthe red desertÑunrolls and spreads out before them like a red carpet in a castle.
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