Partner Clifton Koltz
Queer Places:
4135 Army Street #10, now Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco, CA 94131
Rudolph Carl Gorman (July 26, 1931 – November 3, 2005) was a Native American artist of the Navajo Nation. Referred to as "the Picasso of American Indian artists" by The New York Times, his paintings are primarily of Native American women and characterized by fluid forms and vibrant colors, though he also worked in sculpture, ceramics, and stone lithography. He was also an avid lover of cuisine, authoring four cookbooks, (with accompanying drawings) called Nudes and Food.
Rudolph Carl Gorman was born on the Navajo reservation July 26, 1931. His mother was Adele Katherine Brown and his father was Carl Nelson Gorman. His father, Carl, was one of the original twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers, who, along with his colleagues, developed the unbreakable code American forces used in the Pacific Theater during World War II. They lived in an old stone house near the Catholic mission church in Chinle, Arizona. Navajos occupied areas of Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, placing their point of origin in present-‐ day northeastern New Mexico. Growing up on the reservation, Gorman’s maternal grandmother and Aunt Mary taught him traditional Navajo knowledge such as their Creation stories. Nádleehís presence in the natural order of the universe and their special artistic contributions accorded high status to gender variation in Navajo culture. Further, the Navajos possessed relatively egalitarian male-‐female-‐ nádleehí relations. In matrilineal Navajo culture, women conveyed Diné beliefs and values and Gorman’s maternal grandmother and Aunt Mary repeated these traditions to him. They also encouraged Gorman’s artistic development. In his free time, Gorman loved to draw pictures of the world he lived in: hogans, sheep, his brother Don, and baby sister Donna. He often drew with a stick in the rich red mud on the reservation, as art supplies were scarce. He claimed his art career began at age three: “I have some drawings that I did when I was three and four years old, so I guess it was quite early that I made a decision to paint for a living.”
When Gorman entered boarding school at age twelve, educators introduced him to a conflicting understanding of his own gender and sexual identity. Gorman became a famous artist and lived a public life as a straight Navajo man, but close family and friends knew that Gorman identified as gay. Additionally, he seems to have also understood his identity as two-‐spirit as he wore gender-‐ bending attire and depictions of Navajo women dominated his work, which he partially explained as comfort with expressing his feminine side. In order to become comfortable, however, he moved off the reservation and explored his sexual identity in San Francisco, California in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gorman moved off the Navajo reservation in 1951 when he enlisted in the Navy to both take advantage of employment opportunities that stemmed from the security state and explore his same-‐sex identity. The Navy honorably discharged Gorman in 1955, at Moffet Field (near Sacramento, California), at the rank of seaman, but instead of returning home Gorman decided to explore San Francisco. Between 1959 and 1962 Gorman moved back and forth between San Francisco and the reservation. Gorman’s visits with his family, particularly with his father, became strained once he disclosed his sexual identity. By 1962, Gorman committed to living in San Francisco full time. Living in San Francisco, far from family, permitted Gorman the freedom to engage in a same-‐sex relationship.
He met Clifton Koltz on March 11, 1963, and embarked on his first same-sex partnership. After developing a romantic relationship, they lived together at 4135 Army Street #10 in the Castro, a developing gay district of the city.
My published books:
