Mary Morez, Untitled
Mary Morez
1946-2004
Diné (Navajo)
Date
c.1990
Medium Specific
Oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
30 1/2 x 36 in. (77.5 x 91.4 cm.)
Accession Number
2025.35.15.106
Credit
Gift of Jacquelyn and Robert Slotkin
Memo / Artist Statement
Mary Morez, 1946-2004 (Navajo) is best known for synthesizing Navajo artistic traditions with modernism and semi-abstraction in what is known as the “Mary Morez Style.” A multidisciplinary creative, her work ranged from stylized paintings to realistic drawings depicting moments of daily Navajo life. She created book and record illustrations, textiles, and graphic design and was also an art consultant to the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, now the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, and a curator at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. (https://wheelwright.org)
Biography
Born near Tuba City, Arizona, Morez was stricken with both polio and rheumatic fever as a girl. Though she was adopted into a non-Native family after her illness, her deep connection to her Navajo family, life, and culture are central to her art practice. Her work examines and celebrates the Navajo narrative and is intertwined with contemporary Indigenous feminist discourse.
She first studied at the Phoenix Indian School before receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona and she received a scholarship to study fashion illustration at the Ray Vogue Art School in Chicago. In 1969, she chose to devote her work to full-time painting. Allan Houser and Oscar Howe served as her mentors early in life. Her work combined traditional Navajo elements with a more contemporary, abstract style. Besides painting Morez also worked as a textile artist. For much of her career she lived in Phoenix, Arizona.
She first studied at the Phoenix Indian School before receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona and she received a scholarship to study fashion illustration at the Ray Vogue Art School in Chicago. In 1969, she chose to devote her work to full-time painting. Allan Houser and Oscar Howe served as her mentors early in life. Her work combined traditional Navajo elements with a more contemporary, abstract style. Besides painting Morez also worked as a textile artist. For much of her career she lived in Phoenix, Arizona.
Inscription
Morez (lr)