Original Loloma Stone Lithograph “Father Lizard” [SOLD]

Charles Loloma is best known for his impact on Indian jewelry design, but, before venturing into jewelry design, he was first a ceramicist and a painter. While attending High School at the Village of Oraibi on the Hopi Reservation, he studied under the well-known Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. He attended the Phoenix Indian School and, while still a student, was selected by Kabotie to assist in the reproduction of the Awatovi murals for the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

At the age of 18, and still a student, he worked with Kabotie executing murals for the Federal Building in the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. In the 1940s, he illustrated two books by Edward Kennard, so we can see that he was well established as an artist before he was twenty years old.

Stone lithographs are executed by an artist by drawing an image on a granite-like stone that is perfectly smooth and perfectly flat.  The image is then treated with solutions that permit ink to be absorbed in desired sections and repelled in non-image sections.  It is a laborious process and involves using a separate stone for each color in the image.  Each color is then printed singly and the end result is the finished product.

This image of “Father Lizard” was begun on February 17, 1980 and completed on May 11, 1980.  It was printed at Southwest Graphics Workshop of Scottsdale, Arizona.  It was printed on white Arches paper in three colors and hand tinted with thalo green watercolor after the edition was printed.

There were 100 copies printed in the numbered edition.  There were also 3 Studio Impressions.  This is number 1 of the Studio Impressions.  It is signed in lower right and numbered in lower left.  Official documentation is included with the lithograph.

Condition: original condition and mounted such that the full paper is visible.

Provenance: from a gentleman from Colorado