R. C. GORMAN--ART AND THE MARKETPLACE

It was a difficult summer for the rambunctious Navajo artist R. C. Gorman. A bout with peritonitis put him in the hospital for two weeks, during which time his gallbladder was removed, and part of the post-operative treatment included an absolute ban on alcohol.

Even Gorman conceded that this could turn out to be fortuitous. Conducting a visitor through his rambling, extravagant home and studio complex just north of Taos, Gorman noted matter-of-factly that, a few months earlier, old friend Elizabeth Taylor had written him, suggesting that he enter the Betty Ford Center near Palm Springs.

He scoffed at the suggestion, saying that he’s mellowed--his illness serving as a pointed reminder of his own mortality. And artistically and personally, R. C. Gorman cares little about how he’s remembered. He lives and works for the present--the notion representing as much of a commentary on his philosophy about his fame as anything.

“Well,” Gorman said, “I used to drink quite a bit--not as much as her (Taylor), though. (But) when somebody has reformed, they tend to become fanatical about converting people.” He laughed.

In less than two decades, Gorman has emerged from comparative obscurity to become one of the hottest names in what might be called boutique art. His images of slightly chunky Native American-appearing women adorn the walls of homes, office buildings and a scattering of museums all over the country. Working in a variety of media, Gorman has amassed enormous commercial and public success while being largely dismissed by most critics as someone who’s in art for about the same reasons that Denny’s is in food.

When Gorman arrived here 11 or 12 years ago, he was a bold artist whose work was varied and, without doubt, greatly promising artistically, agreed Patrick Houlihan, curator of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, and Marilyn Butler, a gallery owner (Scottsdale, Ariz., and Santa Fe, N.M.).

In 1973 or 1974, recalled Butler, something changed in Gorman. He discovered the economic advantages of mass-produced prints--each of them can net far more than a single original--and, said Butler, “there didn’t seem to be much discrimination about it. He developed a formula of the Navajo-looking woman, and there hasn’t been anything new since then.

“After he developed this formula, it didn’t seem that he had to think anymore about the work.”

What Gorman apparently started thinking about was how to sell the formula--as widely as possible. He flies to six to 10 shows a year across the country--there is also one in Santa Fe every August--flaunting a jet-set life style. He cultivates an image of outrageousness--he was once thrown out of the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago because a doorman mistook him, wearing a red bandanna headband and sandals, for a street person. He returned in a rage to confront the manager and moved with a flourish to the Drake.

But behind it, there is a cold and calculating sanity. The shows sell out frequently, and Gorman returns to Taos with the check in his pocket. Alan Edison, owner of the Great American Gallery in Chicago--the franchisee for original Gormans there--put the gross for the most recent Gorman show there at $45,000.

Gorman has crafted an image as something of a carouser, an eccentric with a finely honed sense of the outrageous. Stories circulate about him having demanded that members of his entourage peel grapes and feed them to him at a Santa Fe gallery book signing. It is said that at his first encounter with poppy-seed rolls at a local restaurant, he licked half the seeds off before someone pointed out the absurdity of what he was doing.

These tales clearly amuse Gorman, who concedes some of them have at least a basis in fact. “I think a lot of this (comes from) things I’ve said and people have magnified the truth a little,” he said, smiling. For instance, in the case of the grape-peeling incident, Gorman explained, “I might have said that, but I doubt anyone would actually do it for me.”

If what had been expected was something from the public-relations files on Gorman--perhaps an animated, gregarious, outrageous and even insane artiste --Gorman in person was a total contradiction. He seemed not quite over his summer illness. He was cordial and attentive, yet conscious enough of media relations that he casually pulled a prepared kit of clippings from a file drawer.

“I’m mellowing out,” Gorman said. “I just had a very terrible operation and for the longest time, I couldn’t wear clothes and I was confined to caftans. They didn’t know it was that bad and they thought it would be a two-hour operation, but it took six.

“This mellows one down. I thought I would just go on forever, but I am reminded this is not possible.”

He has friendships with people like Andy Warhol, and he loves to tell a story about encountering Salvador Dali in an elevator in the St. Regis hotel in New York. The car was crowded, but Gorman and two people traveling with him managed to squeeze inside. He recognized Dali, but didn’t speak to him. Finally, though, one of Gorman’s companions took the initiative, announcing: “Dali, this is R. C. Gorman.” Dali looked up, Gorman recalled with great satisfaction, and replied, “Yes, I know.”

The man whom an art magazine would eventually call “Navajo in vogue” and a “press agent’s dream” was born Rudolph Carl Gorman on the Navajo reservation in Chinle, Ariz., son of Carl Gorman--himself a prominent artist who would eventually live in Encino, teach at UC Davis and retire back on the reservation.

Gorman’s mother, Adella Katherine Brown, died recently. She separated from Carl Gorman a few years after R. C. was born. Gorman has always credited his grandmother with raising him.

It’s not exactly clear when R. C. Gorman was born. He will only say that his listed birth date in 1932 is “a reasonable time, give or take 10 years.” Official biographies put his age at 53; there is rampant speculation that he is at least five years older.

Gorman was educated in reservation boarding schools--standard practice for Indian children. After high school, there was a stint in the Navy following which the aspiring artist attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, majoring in literature with a minor in art. Eventually, overwhelmingly impressed by the work of Orozco, he talked the tribal government into financing his art studies in Mexico, where he studied with Jose Sanchez, a master printer who has worked with Orozco, Siqueiros and Tamayo.

“I was raised on the reservation, and we didn’t have very much,” Gorman recalled. “The only thing I had to go on were books on artists, and I went through the whole gamut. My favorites were artists like Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Van Gogh. Up to Picasso.

“What really changed a lot of my ways of expressing myself was when I went to Mexico and saw those very bold impressions from the Mexican artists like Siqueiros and Tamayo. I still love Tamayo and Orozco.”

Returning from Mexico, Gorman settled in San Francisco, supporting himself as a male model while experimenting with his art. Fame came slowly, if steadily. Eventually, he visited Taos as a tourist, liked it here and settled permanently.

Throughout the country, Gorman’s paintings, lithographs, seriographs, paper casts, pottery, cast bronze sculptures, etched-glass room dividers and even T-shirts have become as ubiquitous as Muzak. The images have been called suspiciously reminiscent of Zuniga, but Gorman contends he never heard of Zuniga until after his own style was established.

“I admire him very much,” Gorman said of Zuniga. “Actually, when you come right down to it, the only thing we have in common is large women. And I’ve slimmed (mine) down. But now, the more I look at it, we do have different attitudes and certainly different models. But if they are going to compare me to anyone, (Zuniga) is just as good as any.”

Gorman and his associates are reluctant to talk in precise terms about the economics of his various enterprises. However, a picture does emerge from interviews with gallery owners in three cities and a review of the current prices for Gorman’s work at a variety of galleries, as well as the volume of goods produced by the artist. Rough calculations indicate his personal net income is at least $1.2 million a year. The gross is far larger--perhaps more than $10 million--but Gorman employs 11 people, including his housekeeper, gallery help and others. He says he has three lawyers working almost full time on his affairs.

His work is affordably priced for the middle class (the lithographs and seriographs, anyway), yet costly enough to create the impression of a significant investment.

Contracts with the three printing houses that reproduce Gorman’s work limit his new lithographs to 15 a year. Between 150 and 200 copies are made of each print. Retail prices for the prints today range from about $800 to $2,000--with most about $1,500.

He produces a mix of limited-edition prints and original paintings--the sculptures and other works are a sideline--but a single lithograph can net him as much as $50,000, according to Marian Frank, operator of the Enthios Gallery in Santa Fe and his authorized dealer there. Lithographs and seriographs are more widely distributed and sellers are chosen by the printing houses.

The crucial mix of mass-produced prints and original works, Gorman said, “is the whole point, I guess. You’re taking your chances too. What if nobody likes it? There have been some slow sellers.”

The artist owns two outlets outright--the Navajo Galleries in Taos and Albuquerque--and Gorman preserves territorial exclusivity for his affiliates, in essence treating them as franchised dealers who are assured that no one in their sales area will receive shipments of new work direct from the artist. Original paintings (of which Gorman produces between 90 and 120 a year, according to Virginia Dooley, manager of the Taos gallery) retail at an average of $5,000. His line of ceramic vases, in editions of about 150, retail for $1,200 to $1,800 and bronze sculptures go for as much as $62,000 (in an edition of seven, of which all but the last have been sold).

He understands perfectly the importance of having a continuing supply of new product available in the marketplace--not just to produce immediate income but to assure continuing public interest while attracting new customers. “I always feel the pressure of a schedule,” he said. One of the results of this philosophy is that Gorman is largely denied the recognition, in the form of shows at major museums, that is accorded artists of more legitimate stature.

Gorman’s sympathizers believe that lack of recognition may be as much because he is an Indian as anything else. They say no Indian artist has ever achieved widespread acceptance in the art community. Forrest Fenn, a Santa Fe gallery owner who has known Gorman for many years but doesn’t handle his work, agreed that being an Indian is a hindrance. Fenn said the problem is that Native American artists are not allowed to shed their ethnic identities and be considered on their merits just as artists. But even with Gorman being identified as more an art factory than a true artist, Fenn believes Gorman still meets several criteria necessary to be seen in history as a significant artist--though probably not in his lifetime.

For one thing, Fenn contends that, for centuries, many important artists have achieved a consistency of style like Gorman’s that, though possibly monotonous, has assured a ready identification of their works. And important artists, Fenn argues, also have been prolific enough to keep their product in circulation to build and sustain their fame.

“R. C. Gorman does what he’s best at--any good businessman does the same thing,” Fenn said. “He has a vast following and he’s having too much fun to have it any other way. (Fellow Southwest artist Fritz) Scholder wants to be important 100 years from now. R. C. couldn’t care less.”

Gorman doesn’t quarrel with that. He revels in the public attention and cares little about his place in history. Enduring fame “is not a big important thing to me. I just do things.”

He agrees that, though he and Scholder are often mentioned in the same vein--artists more bent on commercial than artistic success--Scholder values widespread acceptance among the art community where he does not. “He (Scholder) needs that kind of influence,” Gorman said. “He’s an intellectual painter and I am an emotional painter.”

And if indeed Scholder cares about such things, it isn’t a preoccupation that gets any sympathy from Gorman. “I’m perfectly satisfied,” he said, “with the way I am while I’m living.”