Original Painting of Navajo Family and Its Hogan [R]

Robert Draper presents us with an image of a mother and daughter standing in front of their traditional Navajo hogan, the family home.  Hogans were traditionally built of logs covered in layers of packed mud.  They were a single room and the family home.  The floor was dirt and a fire kept the room warm even through the night.  Around 1900, hogans for family homes began disappearing in favor of government-sponsored homes with kitchens and bath rooms. 

Hogans remained in use for ceremonial functions even as they were abandoned as family homes.  Now, in the last two decades, they are making a comeback due to a push by the Navajo Nation to restore them to family use.  They are energy efficient and cost efficient, much more so than government housing.  Traditional hogans were round or eight-sided with an east-facing door to greet the Sun in the morning.  Navajo healing ceremonies, conducted by Medicine Men, are always performed in a traditional hogan.

This painting gives us a view of a traditional scene on the Navajo Reservation prior to modernization and the arrival of pickup trucks.  The females would tend the sheep daily as the men performed their duties of taking care of the horses and perhaps making jewelry. It was a sunrise to sunset day with a close-knit family working and living together.

It appears the painting may be a combination of watercolor and Conte crayon but it is difficult to make a determination.  It is signed in lower right and framed in a beautiful inlay-wood frame.

Condition:  appears to be in original condition although it has not been examined out of the frame.

Provenance: from the collection of a gentleman in California

Recommended Reading:  Southwest Indian Painting: A Changing Art by Clara Lee Tanner