Description:
Sand and pigment on board; 12 x 9 inches; signed recto.Sand painting with numerous Southwestern images including a snake, turtle, and sun, as well as two depictions of the lute-playing fertility deity Kokopelli, one traditional and the other the more modern inception of the character.David was born on the Navajo Reservation in 1926 at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, the son of a Najavo mother and Euro-American Missionary father. He was educated at the Santa Fe Indian School, where he was taught by Dorothy Dunn. He initially struggled with his mixed race identity, falling into alcoholism early in life, and eventually left the reservation and lied about his age to join the merchant marines. He enlisted in the US Army, gathering information and relaying it stateside in his native language. He was captured, interrogated, and tortured but his life was ultimately spared by a German officer whom he had befriended years earlier during his time with the merchant marines. When he was rescued by the allies, he was… Read More
