Description:
Watercolor on Paper. Signed l.r.: Gerald Nailor, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 71.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 12: Andy is another gifted Navajo who is building up prestige for his tribe. He was born near Chinle, Arizona, in 1916. After playing his allotted number of years with other Canyon Kiddies, he was sent to Fort Apache Grade school to learn the three R's. Later he went to that educational mecca for Indians in the Southwest, the Santa Fe Indian School. His talent was soon apparent and he was early set to work doing murals. There is one in the Phoenix Indian School, another in the sanitorium at Winslow and a very interesting one at the Fort Sill School in Oklahoma. Like the rest of the Navajo artists, he has fared well in exhibitions. He won the American Magazine prize in the late thirties. He has done the illustrations for a book entitled, "Who Wants to be a Prairie Dog?" a fairy tale in the Navajo language. Andy's favorite subjects are the Navajos, their horses, sheep, and goats, their ceremonials, and their occupations -- herding, weaving, and silversmithing -- subjects with which he has been familiar all his life. Much Japanese art has been seen in this country during the last fifty years. Several Japanese artists have been working in our land, but I am sure that little American art had been seen, and even less produced in Japan. Andy Tsihnahjinne has the distinction of having painted a mural for a barroom in Rahikawa some thirty miles from Tokio. It was, of course, done while Andy was with the American occupation forces. He was in the campaigns in New Guinea, Philippines, Japan, and China with the VBC where he did valuable work in confusing the Japs by communicating in the Navajo language. He says that he liked Niponese painting and that he used to watch with delight the Japanese artists at work. No doubt he was intrigued by their expert cleverness, but at no time was he bowled over. With the pride and confidence of the true Navajo, he winds up with the statement, "but...I like my own best."
His work is impressive; he speaks with authority. In color he prefers the earth tones found in the land of his childhood and the deep hued velvets of his people -- rich blacks, red, russets, burnt oranges, spiced with turquoise and silver ornaments. Up to the present time he has almost exclusively devoted himself to interpretation of his tribe and their activities, avoiding buffalo hunts and foreign importations. In olden times, most Indian dances were of a religious nature. Of late social dances in imitation of the Whites' square dances of the ranch country have been gaining ground among the younger set. The painting selected to represent Tsihnahjinnie is a good example of his style. (Collection, University of Oklahoma)