Harrison Begay
Encyclopedia
Harrison Begay (born 1914(?), White Cone, Arizona) is a renowned Navajo
painter
, perhaps the most famous of his generation. Begay specializes in watercolors and silkscreen prints. He is the oldest living former student of Dorothy Dunn
at the Santa Fe Indian School
. His work has won multiple awards, and is exhibited in museums and private collections worldwide.
in the Navajo Nation
, to Black Rock and Zonnie Tachinie Begay. His mother belonged to the Zuni White Corn Clan, and his father was Walk Around Clan / Near Water Clan. Young Harrison herded his family's flock of sheep near Greasewood, where he still lives.
In 1933, he entered the Santa Fe Indian School
to study art under Dorothy Dunn
in her new Studio School. His classmates included Gerald Nailor
, Quincy Tahoma
, Geronima Montoya and Andrew Tsihnahjinnie. Begay learned Dunn's characteristic "Studio Style" or "flat-style painting"; in her book American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas, Dunn described Begay's work as "at once decorative and lifelike, his color clear in hue and even in value, his figures placid yet inwardly animated.... [H]e seemed to be inexhaustibly resourceful in a quiet reticent way."
In 1940, he attended Black Mountain College
in North Carolina
, to study architecture for one year. In 1941, he enrolled in Phoenix College
in Arizona. From 1942 to 1945, Begay served in the US Army Signal Corps.
) in 2004, at age 90.
His work has been included in almost every important public and private collection of Native American art, including the Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art
, the Museum of Northern Arizona
, the Heard Museum
, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
, the Wheelwright Museum, the Southwest Museum
, the Philbrook Museum, the Gilcrease Museum
, and many more.
Begay won two grand awards at the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial and has been a consistent winner at state and tribal fairs. In 1954, he was awarded the French Ordre des Palmes Académiques.
In 1995, he was awarded the Native American Masters Award by the Heard Museum
. In 2003, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the organizers of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market
.
Begay paints scenes from traditional Navajo life, showing the beauty of a "timeless, peaceful and gentle world". "Although his prodigious output included facile minor works tending towards sentimentality, his major work is characterized by inventiveness, originality, refinement and delicacy." His most familiar subjects are Navajo people in ceremonial and daily life, horses and riders, and deer
.
Begay's work has been featured in publications such as Enduring Tradition: Art of the Navajos, by Lois and Jerry Jacka; Southwest Indian Painting, by Clara Lee Tanner; and When the Rainbow Touches Down, by Tryntje Van Ness Seymour.
Recent major exhibits have included:
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, perhaps the most famous of his generation. Begay specializes in watercolors and silkscreen prints. He is the oldest living former student of Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn Kramer was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.-Background:Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Chicago. She first encountered Native American art at the Field Museum in Chicago in 1925...
at the Santa Fe Indian School
Santa Fe Indian School
The Santa Fe Indian School is a secondary school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. It was founded in 1890 as a boarding school for Native American children from the state's Indian pueblos. But in the course of its history, the school has also served as a major cultural catalyst for the...
. His work has won multiple awards, and is exhibited in museums and private collections worldwide.
Biography
Harrison Begay was born in the fall of (probably) 1914, at White Cone, near Greasewood, ArizonaGreasewood, Arizona
Greasewood is a census-designated place in Navajo County, Arizona, United States. The population was 581 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Greasewood is located at ....
in the Navajo Nation
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
, to Black Rock and Zonnie Tachinie Begay. His mother belonged to the Zuni White Corn Clan, and his father was Walk Around Clan / Near Water Clan. Young Harrison herded his family's flock of sheep near Greasewood, where he still lives.
In 1933, he entered the Santa Fe Indian School
Santa Fe Indian School
The Santa Fe Indian School is a secondary school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. It was founded in 1890 as a boarding school for Native American children from the state's Indian pueblos. But in the course of its history, the school has also served as a major cultural catalyst for the...
to study art under Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn Kramer was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.-Background:Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Chicago. She first encountered Native American art at the Field Museum in Chicago in 1925...
in her new Studio School. His classmates included Gerald Nailor
Gerald Nailor, Sr.
Gerald Nailor, Sr. or Toh Yah was a Navajo Studio painter from Picurís, New Mexico. Beginning in 1942, he was commissioned to paint the history of the Navajo people for a large mural at the Navajo Nation Council Chamber, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark.-Background:Gerald...
, Quincy Tahoma
Quincy Tahoma
Quincy Tahoma was a Navajo painter from Arizona and New Mexico.-Youth:Quincy Tahoma was born near Tuba City, Arizona in 1920. Tahoma means "Water Edge.'As a young boy he became familiar with many religious and traditional chants and rituals...
, Geronima Montoya and Andrew Tsihnahjinnie. Begay learned Dunn's characteristic "Studio Style" or "flat-style painting"; in her book American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas, Dunn described Begay's work as "at once decorative and lifelike, his color clear in hue and even in value, his figures placid yet inwardly animated.... [H]e seemed to be inexhaustibly resourceful in a quiet reticent way."
In 1940, he attended Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, to study architecture for one year. In 1941, he enrolled in Phoenix College
Phoenix College
Phoenix College is a community college located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Founded in 1920, it is one of the oldest community colleges in the country....
in Arizona. From 1942 to 1945, Begay served in the US Army Signal Corps.
Artistic career and awards
Begay returned to the Navajo reservation in 1947, and has made his living as a painter ever since. Begay has continued to paint in the Dorothy Dunn "Studio style" throughout his long career – he was still painting (in acrylicsAcrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...
) in 2004, at age 90.
His work has been included in almost every important public and private collection of Native American art, including the Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Museum of Northern Arizona
Museum of Northern Arizona
The Museum of Northern Arizona is a museum in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, that was established as a repository for Native American artifacts and natural history specimens from the Colorado Plateau.The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist Dr. Harold S...
, the Heard Museum
Heard Museum
The Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art is a museum located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. There is also the Heard Museum North Scottsdale branch in Scottsdale and the Heard Museum West branch in Surprise....
, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology is a museum of Native American art and culture located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is one of eight museums in the state operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and is accredited by the American Association of Museums...
, the Wheelwright Museum, the Southwest Museum
Southwest Museum
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Autry National Center. Its collections deal mainly with the American Indian...
, the Philbrook Museum, the Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum is a museum located northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum now houses the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West as well as a growing collection of art and artifacts from Central and South America...
, and many more.
Begay won two grand awards at the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial and has been a consistent winner at state and tribal fairs. In 1954, he was awarded the French Ordre des Palmes Académiques.
In 1995, he was awarded the Native American Masters Award by the Heard Museum
Heard Museum
The Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art is a museum located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. There is also the Heard Museum North Scottsdale branch in Scottsdale and the Heard Museum West branch in Surprise....
. In 2003, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the organizers of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market
Santa Fe Indian Market
Santa Fe Indian Market is an annual art market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA over two days on the weekend after the third Thursday in August and draws an estimated 100,000 people to the city from around the world. The Market was first held in 1922 as the Indian Fair and was sponsored by the...
.
Begay paints scenes from traditional Navajo life, showing the beauty of a "timeless, peaceful and gentle world". "Although his prodigious output included facile minor works tending towards sentimentality, his major work is characterized by inventiveness, originality, refinement and delicacy." His most familiar subjects are Navajo people in ceremonial and daily life, horses and riders, and deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
.
Begay's work has been featured in publications such as Enduring Tradition: Art of the Navajos, by Lois and Jerry Jacka; Southwest Indian Painting, by Clara Lee Tanner; and When the Rainbow Touches Down, by Tryntje Van Ness Seymour.
Recent major exhibits have included:
- "Through Their Eyes: Paintings from the Santa Fe Indian School" http://www.wheelwrightmuseum.org/exhibitions.html, Wheelwright Museum, 2009-2010.
- "Beautiful Resistance: Works on Paper from the Heard MuseumHeard MuseumThe Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art is a museum located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. There is also the Heard Museum North Scottsdale branch in Scottsdale and the Heard Museum West branch in Surprise....
Collection" http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa266.htm, 2005. - "Beneath A Turquoise Sky: Navajo Painters and Their World" http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa452.htm, National Cowboy & Western Heritage MuseumNational Cowboy & Western Heritage MuseumThe National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo, photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies...
, 2004.
External links
- Gallery of Begay prints
- Brief Begay interview and photographs, by Gary AuerbachGary AuerbachDr. Gary Alan Auerbach, DC, was born April 24, 1948 in Monticello, New York, to Norman and Judith Auerbach. He received his BS in accounting in 1971 from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and worked for Coopers & Lybrand in San Francisco. He received his Doctor of Chiropractic Degree from...
, 2002 - Illustrated biography at Medicine Man Gallery
- Gallery of recent Begay acrylic paintings
- Gallery of older Begay watercolor paintings