GPAC to exhibit Martin Link art collection
Man of many accomplishments, Martin Link, and independent curator Michele Pracy discuss Wallace Begay's painting "Father Sky, Mother Earth," one of 170 paintings from Link's private collection on display at GPAC through September 26. — © 2008 Charles Young for the Independent

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Charles Young
For the Independent

GALLUP — Martin Link recalled his first job after graduating from the University of Arizona, working as a ranger-archaeologist at Canyon de Chelly. He lived near the campground in a trailer so narrow the bed fit side to side in the back.

“It was enough to be able to put together enough gas for the damn car to get up to Chinle because I had no money to start with,” Link said. “And what I did have had to keep me going for two to three weeks until the first paycheck. So it was going to the trading post and buying a can of sardines or some baloney and bread.”

He presented campfire programs, guided hikes to the White House ruins, and dealt with tourists who in 1958 numbered 28,000 per year, and who may now reach 28,000 in one holiday weekend.

That summer turned out to be a fortuitous introduction to the Navajo people and culture for Link, who spent the next 20 years working with the tribe, playing major roles in researching issues and archaeological sites during the Hopi-Navajo boundary dispute, establishing Monument Valley Tribal Park, and founding the Navajo Nation Museum.

Tonight, from 5:30 to 7:30, the Gallup Performing Arts Center at 1500 South 2nd St. will host the opening of the first comprehensive exhibition of Link’s private art collection, amassed largely during his years as the museum’s first director. The show will run through Sept. 26, and will be GPAC’s last show before going out of business.

Link had and still has personal relationships with many of the artists he’s collected; and he’s helped many achieve wider recognition, including a young man who dropped by the museum at the suggestion of his father, artist and former Code Talker Carl Gorman.

The young man, known as Rudy at the time, showed Link his portfolio and said he wanted to promote not just his art, but himself because artists who promoted themselves were ultimately more successful.

“We sat down and we made up a little bumper sticker — God damn, I wish I had saved one!” Link said. “It said ‘Who is R.C. Gorman?’ And we went down to the Tribal printing office — they had the paper that you peel the back off. They were only about 8-inches long. Then he and I took them down to the parking lot of Fed Co, now the big grocery store, and put them on every single vehicle.

“It worked. We made more of those damn bumper stickers and we brought them to town, and he took them different places. He kicked off his career with a little bumper sticker, and got his notoriety by people knowing his name.”

Link was handed the task of creating what was originally called the Navajo Tribal Museum when the tribe couldn’t decide what to do with the last remaining log building at the fairgrounds. The building had been home to the Arts & Crafts Guild, which had moved into a new space on the highway. Link’s archaeological work was winding down when he was visited by Councilmen Howard Gorman and Sam Day III.

“They said we have two choices,” Link remembered. “We don’t know what else to do with the building and we’ll tear it down unless you want to take on the responsibility and challenge of creating a museum.”

Link worked “seven days a week, morning, noon and night” giving his all to the project.

“I was bound and determined that my museum would not be a bunch of skeletons and a place of the dead, which all Navajos stereotyped museums to be,” Link said. “Navajos were the first tribe to establish their own museum; it was the first Indian-owned and operated museum in North America.”

With a limited budget, Link would acquire rugs, paintings and artifacts for the museum’s collection.

“But when I ran out of money, and there was something I really liked, and I could afford it, I’d buy it for myself,” he said.

Link bought his first personal art-pieces while hosting a booth at the 1961 New Mexico State Fair. He had assembled a traveling exhibition to promote tourism in Navajoland.

“The people in the next booth were teachers at Jemez Day School,” Link said. “Al Momaday and his wife. Their little 8-year-old son was running around the place too.”

Momaday was showing his students’ artwork and Link purchased two watercolors by Rafael Medina. Momaday also had a painting of his own which Link fancied — a Kiowa medicine man that Momaday wanted $100 for.

“We’re taking everything down,” Link recalled, “and he said ‘you know I just need $25 for gas to get back to Jemez. If we go to a bar and you buy the drinks, I’ll sell you the painting for 25 bucks. It turned out to be my only painting by Al Momaday ... $25 and a couple of beers.”

Link stayed in contact with the Momadays and watched Scott, the 8-year-old, grow up to be a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

In 1976, the Bicentennial year, Link helped assemble a three-man commission with the grand plan of building a new museum, library and zoo.

“Tribes were not participating in the Bicentennial,” Link said. “But Congress had appropriated a fair amount of money to be directed to Indian tribes that were going to be involved. So we said what the Hell — swallow our pride and let’s go for it.”

The commission first applied for and received a $300,000 grant to build the new zoo. It also received $50,000 to design a new museum, and then asked for $3.5 million to build it.

“We took our plans to the Bicentennial Committee, made our pitch, and got a favorable response,” Link said. “About two or three months later this guy comes down to the museum and said ‘Martin, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that the check for three and a half million dollars arrived today. The bad news is Chairman McDonald has already spent it.”

Link said the outraged commissioners followed up to find McDonald had indeed used the money for purposes other than those it was intended for. Fifteen years later the tribe did build a new museum, at twice the cost.

“I’m not spending the rest of my life in this log building,” said the bitterly disappointed director to himself at the time. Link retired from the museum and a short time later was hired to manage Red Rock State Park. He also began teaching at Diné College and UNM-Gallup where he continues to offer his unique history and culture classes.
Link’s GPAC show will be divided into five sections: landscapes, portraits, religious subjects, heroes & warriors, and horses. Featured artists include Fred Cleveland, whose work Link purchased while Cleveland was still at the Albuquerque Indian School, and who became the museum’s chief illustrator and graphic artist.

Also on display will be what Link facetiously calls his most expensive painting, “Winter Hogan” by Beatin Yazz.
“I bought that one for my parents and everybody just fell in love with it,” Link said of the dark, snowy scene depicted in various shades of blue. “I went home for Christmas and they had replaced all the carpets to match the painting.

Went back the next year and all the window drapes matched the painting. The next year they had actually painted the walls a light blue. Then they reupholstered the furniture. I had to laugh — my mother always said that’s the most expensive painting we’ve got in this house.”