Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Keahbone, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 23.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, p. 16: Dear Mr. Jacobson: ...As a lad my ever desire was, someday to become an artist... ...I never tired of drawing, even during my school years at Bacone. I'd bury my head in a tablet, drawing all kinds of pictures every spare time I got. I love to draw animals, especially horses, with lots of action, Indians on horses, o the war path, etc. In the fall of 1934 I entered the Santa Fe Indian School as a special art student, and under the direction of Miss Dorothy Dunn, developed my art. I graduated in 1936, married a Taos Pueblo girl and now am living in Taos, New Mexico. Sincerely, G.C. Keahbone Keahbone is still painting pictures, that is, sometimes. Other duties occupy most of his time as he has a family to support. Often he works at cabinet making. He managed to attend some art courses under the G.I. Bill, having seen action in Okinawa and China as a member of the famous Navy Gropac 13 Outfit. He generally chooses for his subjects the Plains Indians instead of the Pueblos among whom he now lives. His personal style is very much akin to that of the older Kiowa group from Oklahoma, where he was born in 1915. The colors of the paintings of the Kiowas are much richer and more brilliant than those of the Pueblos or the Navajos. They (the Kiowas) delight in dozens of blues, yellows, red, and purples; memories perhaps of their grandmothers' beadwork. Keahbone's paintings have been seen in many of the larger museums in the United States, and the Trocodero in Paris. "Buffalo Hunters" represents his earlier manner. There is an atmosphere of caution, mixed with anticipation, about the three nude hunters. The feeling of the wide open spaces of the buffalo country is conveyed by three lines of different width and tone. In color, this picture is more restrained than in most later works. (Collection, University of Oklahoma)