Partner Dorothy Stewart
Queer Places:
Los Luceros, 253 Co Rd 41, Ohkay Owingeh, NM 87566
12 Palvadera Rd, Abiquiu, NM 87510
Maria Chabot (September
19, 1913 – July 9, 2001), was an advocate for Native American arts, a rancher, and a friend of
Georgia O'Keeffe. She was the general contractor for her house in Abiquiú, New Mexico and took the photograph of O'Keeffe entitled Women Who Rode Away, in which the artist was on the back of a motorcycle driven by
Maurice Grosser.[1] Their correspondence was published in the book Maria Chabot—Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence 1941-1949.
Though Chabot never publicly called herself a lesbian, her lasting romantic and life partnerships were with women. In 1961, Chabot married radio astronomer Dana K. Bailey, whom she had originally met during her travels in the 1930s. Married for only six months, she said, "we were much better as friends than as husband and wife."
Chabot was born on September 19, 1913 in San Antonio, Texas.[2] Her paternal grandfather, Charles Stooks Chabot, was the English ambassador to Mexico. Her father, Charles Chabot, was born in 1866 in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. A few years later, the family moved to San Antonio, Texas, the hometown of Charles' mother, Mary Van Derlip Chabot; her family was considered among the "Makers of San Antonio". Charles remained in San Antonio for the remainder of his life. His first wife, Pauline, (m. 1886) gave birth to a son, Frederick. Soon after, Pauline died while giving birth to their second child, who also did not survive. Charles remarried Lilian Hugo in 1884. Their union resulted in two children, Charles Hugo (b. 1895) and Edith (b. 1898). In 1907, Lilian and Charles Hugo drowned while swimming in the Guadalupe River, in Bexar County, TX. In 1912 Charles remarried his final time, Ollie Johnston, and Maria Chabot was their only child. Chabot's oldest half-brother, Frederick Chabot, became a well-known Texas state historian and her half-sister, Edith, married Army General Charles S. Kilburn. Maria, who was 15 years younger than her closest half-sibling, excelled in school, graduating from high school at 15. Chabot took a job as copywriter at a San Antonio department store before leaving the United States for Mexico at 17 years of age to explore life as a writer. Just before her 18th birthday, Chabot met Santa Fe-based artist, Dorothy Stewart. When Chabot was 19, the two began a romantic relationship, which ended in 1939. Chabot and Stewart remained close friends until Stewart's death of a brain hemorrhage in 1955. Thanks to Stewart and Chabot's cousin Emily Edwards, Maria spent time with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo, among many other well-known artists. Through them she learned of native arts and crafts, and she began a life history of documentation - both in word and photographs.
Georgia O'Keeffe
and Maurice Grosser, Women Who Rode Away, by Maria Chabot
In 1933–34, Chabot traveled with Stewart from Mexico to the East Coast, spending time with Stewart's family in Philadelphia, in Boston, and with artist Orozco as he created his famous fresco The Epic of American Civilization at Dartmouth College. Chabot then returned on a part-time basis to Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Stewart. There she worked with Stewart's sister, Margretta Stewart Dietrich, to publicize the work of the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs (later known as the Southwest Association on Indian Affairs). The Santa Fe Indian Market had been established for a number of years before her arrival, but was not thriving. Chabot noticed similarities between the Native American market and those of the small villages in Mexico and proposed major changes -- mostly dealing with accessibility. Santa Fe was far from most pueblos and reservations, and transportation was non-existent for most Native American artists. Chabot arranged for off-duty school buses to transport artists and also advocated for vetting of artisans to ensure cheap foreign imposter crafts did not find a place at the Market. Chabot also worked for the Works Progress Administration where she helped writers and artists find work. She also worked to document Spanish Colonial and Native American arts and crafts. She photographed the collection of Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who was a noted collector of Navajo art, now in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.[1] Based on her initial observations, Chabot was made the executive secretary of the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs in 1936. She established weekly fairs and rented schools buses to transport Native Americans to the markets where they could sell their jewelry, pottery, or other wares. Initially, local businesses opposed the Native American markets, which were established by Chabot to promote their works. She visited pueblos and encouraged artists to sell their works, including Maria Martinez, a potter of the San Ildefonso Pueblo. She worked then at the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board where she established cooperative marketing organizations on reservations.[1] In 1937–38, Chabot and Stewart traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Stewart studying native arts and Chabot documenting the effects of colonialism on native arts and crafts. Upon her return Chabot was recruited by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and spent nearly 12 months visiting reservations across the U.S. to document arts & crafts. It was hard work she did not enjoy. Determined to bring the beauty of Native American art to the forefront of the country's art scene, Chabot quit the Association and began a year-long campaign to fund a magazine, and related installations, that would highlight native arts and craft from America and around the world. Her meetings with the upper echelons of art were to no avail — the Rockefellers, the Met, the Guggenheim — were only interested in European arts. Chabot did make a friend and ally in Mary Cabot Wheelwright. Distant cousins, they formed a quick bond, though the two women were miles apart in age and bearing. Wheelwright lived mainly on the East Coast, but she owned a large ranch at Los Luceros in Northern New Mexico, had a massive collection of Native American arts and crafts, and a budding Santa Fe museum from which to display them.
Chabot ran Wheelwright's cattle ranch and fruit tree orchard, Los Luceros, at Alcalde, New Mexico for 20 years. During that period, she was voted president of the local irrigation association -- an unheard of position for a woman in the 1940s. The ranch was ultimately deeded to Chabot by Wheelwright upon her death.[1]
In 1940, Chabot met Georgia O'Keeffe, with whom she had a friendship.[3] She spent the summers at her house on the Ghost Ranch from 1941 to 1944, spending most of her time managing the house and organizing O'Keeffe's painting trips to the Black Place and the White Place. She was captured in the painting Maria goes to a Party in one of O'Keeffe's paintings of their time together. Chabot managed the acquisition, design and building of adobe hacienda in Abiquiú for O'Keeffe. She said of the experience, "I had never found anything as romantic as this beat-up building, a ruin really... It took six months just to get the pigs out of the house."[1] Chabot and O'Keeffe exchanged almost 700 letters, which were published in 2004 in the book Maria Chabot—Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence 1941-1949.[3][4] In 1994, after seeing proof of her influence in the artist's life, Richard Brettell, then director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, agreed to credit Maria as the “architect, contractor and garden designer” of the Abiquiu house. He wrote to her, “I was deeply moved by your letters and convinced that your role in the project was absolutely critical to its success, but also to [O'Keeffe]’s definitive move from NY to Abiquiu in 1949.” In July 1998 Maria signed a contract with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. As a lifelong consultant, she would be paid $30,000 that year and $25,000 per year until her death for sharing her history — for her memories: letters, house plans, photos and mementos. Money came in from the sale of rights to her photos, the most famous being the one she called “The Women Who Rode Away” with a smiling O’Keeffe astride the back of Maurice Grosser's motorcycle. This same year, the house at Abiquiu was designated a national historic monument and Maria spoke at the ceremony.
In the 1960s, she sold Los Luceros, the ranch that she had inherited from Wheelwright and moved to Albuquerque, where she cared for her mother.[1] She was named a "Living Treasure" of Santa Fe in 1996. Chabot died on July 9, 2001 at 87 years of age in an Albuquerque hospital.[1]
My published books:
