![Gorman-Chimayo-Chili-cropped.jpg](https://nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/Gorman-Chimayo-Chili-cropped.jpg)
Posted on behalf of Sierra Medina.
Today NAU Art Museum highlights the artworks of NAU Alumni, RC Gorman, in light of #IndigenousPeoplesDay.
Rudolph Carl Gorman was born in Chinle, Arizona on July 26, 1931. Inspired by his Native-lineage and most famous for his prints of Navajo women, RC Gorman explained to The New York Times “I was raised on the reservation, and we didn’t have very much.” Gorman attended boarding school on the Navajo reservation and later attended Northern Arizona University to study literature and art.
He went on to experiment with art-making in Mexico and San Francisco, then in Taos, New Mexico where he permanently settled to focus on printmaking and painting and occasionally sculpting.
Gorman’s artwork can be found in homes, offices, and museums across the country. Despite his noted friendships with Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Danny DeVito, fame was never a preoccupation for the Southwestern artist. “I’m perfectly satisfied,” he told Los Angeles Times. “[Fame] is not a big important thing to me. I just do things.”
RC Gorman passed away on November 5, 2005. His legacy as “the Picasso of American painters” continues to be remembered by the NAU family and the community of his admirers around the nation.
![Natoma, 1990. by R.C. Gorman](https://nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/Gorman_Natoma_1-392x600.jpg)
![R.C. Gorman, Chimayo Chili. Lithograph. Gift of the Artist.](https://nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/Gorman-Chimayo-Chili-cropped-464x348.jpg)
![R.C. Gorman, Mother and Child, Medium. Gift to the NAU Art Museum from the Artist.](https://nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/Gorman-Mother-and-Child-cropped-453x600.jpg)