Ceremonial 2008: Judged the best
Artist Chester Kahn named Living Treasure

ABOVE: 2008 Inter-tribal Indian Ceremonial Living Treasure recipient Chester Kahn is seen in the recent portrait. BELOW: Henry Chee Dodge, first chairman of the Navajo Tribe, is depicted in this mural by Kahn. The mural is on the wall of the Ellis Tanner Trading Company in Gallup.

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — It took him seven long years, but in the end, Chester Kahn created what many people feel is one of the wonders of Gallup.

The murals that Kahn painted, working three to five days a week on the walls at the Ellis Tanner Trading Company are one of the reasons why he was chosen to be this year’s Living Treasure for the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial.

Still fit and trim at the age of 72, Kahn has created a life’s work that has probably been seen and enjoyed by more Navajos and Native Americans than any other artist’s work of his generation. The 65 portraits and murals called the “Circle of Light” that now grace the Tanner walls have also brought recognition to many of the tribe’s top politicians, musicians, educators and writers, not counting the generic ones honoring Navajo veterans and the Navajo working class.

Ellis Tanner, who commissioned the murals in 1994, said that while he first thought of Kahn when he came up with the idea because of his past work, he wondered at first if he made the right choice because the Kahn murals he had seen were of landscapes.

“Could he do portraits,” Tanner remembers wondering.

He soon found out that not only could Kahn do portraits, but his portrayals of Navajo leaders were unique. “He was able to capture each person’s personality,” Tanner said.

Born in February 1936 near Pine Springs, Ariz., Chester (or as his family and friends would know him a “Tso Yazzy”) spent his childhood doing what so many youngsters his age were doing: herding sheep and attending the local Pine Springs Day School.

“While out herding sheep, I got a great joy doing drawings on pieces of cardboard, or on the canyon walls,” Chester recalls.

He also attended Shiprock Boarding School and Stewart Indian School. With the help of a scholarship, he participated in the Southwest Indian Art Project at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, in 1960-61.

Meanwhile, in 1955, he married his first wife, Annie Tsosie, and they eventually had six children.

After graduating from the Southwest Indian Art Project, he began to procure commissions for public murals. In 1961 he painted two murals: one for the Navajo Shopping Center in Gamerco, and the other for the Gallup Indian Community Center. The latter was painted directly on a cinder block wall, and when the building was razed in the late 1980s, they couldn’t save it.

Through the years, Kahn has worked as a coordinator and teacher’s aide at Stewart Indian School, as well as being a professional painter, fabric designer, silversmith, and a sign and billboard painter. He has illustrated a number of books, including “Warriors of the Rainbow,” “Strange Journey” and “The Winds Erase your Footprints.”

For most of his adult life, he has been very active in the local Baha’i Community. He has traveled and lectured throughout the world on their behalf, and was instrumental in establishing and maintaining the Native American Baha’i Institute, a cluster of facilities on a 40-acre campus in the Houck Navajo community 45 miles west of Gallup.

During his career Kahn has exhibited both his paintings and his silver work at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, the Arizona State Museum in Tucson, the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, the Nevada State Library in Carson City, and the Navajo Tribal Fair in Window Rock, Ariz. He has received numerous awards for both his silver jewelry and his paintings.

In 2004 he completed a large mural at the Thunderbird Supply Company in Gallup, which depicts both traditional Zuni and Navajo scenes. The following year kept him busy with the large mural on the west side of Tanner’s Indian Arts, at the corner of Coal and 3rd St., entitled “Native American Trading.”

But without doubt, his most eloquent and exhaustive project has been the Tanner murals.

“That took a long time because I had to do research on each person, group, or event that I wanted to depict,” he explained.

Currently, Tanner and a staff headed up by Zonnie Gorman are developing a whole cultural project, built around the murals, aimed at inspiring Navajo young people to learn about the contributions of Navajo people, and to pursue their own goals, based on these role models.

Tanner said he is considering expanding the trading post which will give him more space for more murals and when he does, the first person he plans to call is Kahn, who told him he’s ready to go but urged him not to wait too long because he’s not getting any younger.

Previous Living Treasures honored by the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial have been Andy Tsinajinnie, 2000; Harrison Begay, 2001; Pablita Velarde, 2002; Charlie Pratt, 2003; Beatien Yazz, 2004; Edith Tsabetsaye, 2005; Jimmie Abeita, 2006; and Nanabah Aragon, 2007.

Fans of Kahn’s work can meet and visit him at his booth in the Exhibition Hall at Red Rock Park, just east of Gallup, during this year’s Ceremonial. He will be joined by two former Living Treasures who will also have booths in the Exhibition Hall: Charlie Pratt and Jimmie Abeita.

Contributing to this article was Martin Link, who helps coordinate the Ceremonial’s Living Treasure program.