West by Southwest – November 2010
by Ernie Bulow
Lee Marmon with his first camera, 1950.
This year the Santa Fe Indian Market made history in at least three ways: First, there were two “Best in Show” winners to everyone’s surprise; and second, one of those awards went to a Native film by Navajo Blackhorse Lowe, the first time that category was even listed; third, the “Best of Class” award in the painting-drawing-graphics category went to Eve-Lauren LaFountain for a digital photograph.
More than sixty renowned judges participated in choosing the Best of Show Award, which gives it considerable authority and integrity. Photography has been Art’s forgotten stepchild until recently.
Coincidentally, Gallup’s Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial offered prizes in photography for the first time and most of them went to Zuni photographer Michelle Peina. Native American photography has come into its own with a bang.
One man was at least fifty years ahead of the breakthrough. Lee Marmon has been a Native photographer, specializing in Indian subject matter, for more than half a century and his work has not gone unrecognized. Over the years he has appeared in almost every prestigious magazine, had many shows and many well-deserved honors.
In 2006 he received what must be the ultimate honor for a Native American artist, the Lifetime Achievement Award from SWAIA, the governing body of Santa Fe’s Indian Market. The award “honoring those who’ve forever changed the world of art through a lifetime of effort” is similar to Arizona’s “Living Treasure” honors. Lee is the first photographer so honored. To me that fact testifies to the importance of Marmon’s work and accomplishment. It breaks a barrier that is still pretty strong in the art world, especially in Indian art – accepting photography as a legitimate art form.
In 1998 his photographs were exhibited in London, England. In 1999 he was honored at the new Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. His award-winning book Pueblo Imagination, was published in 2003, with text by three of the best Native American authors: Lee’s daughter, Leslie Marmon Silko, Muscogee poet Joy Harjo, and Pueblo writer Simon Ortiz.
As noted, in 2006 SWAIA tapped him for a lifetime achievement award and he was similarly honored in Gallup at the 2009 Inter-Tribal Ceremonial where he served as Grand Marshall for the parade.
I first met Lee Marmon in the late seventies, about the time his daughter Leslie Marmon Silko published her novel Ceremony. I started collecting his photographs soon after. Though Lee lived at the home place in Laguna, he was keeping a room in Albuquerque in a house he shared with three lovely ladies. With his swarthy good looks and his bandit’s mustache, mellow baritone voice and elegant Western hats, I thought he was the epitome of the Western bon vivant.
Lee was proud of the fact that he had photographed celebrities at golf tournaments in Palm Springs, shot Miss Americas and captured Wonder Woman on film. He has photographed movie stars, astronauts and quite a few presidents. I was personally more impressed with his candid photos that documented Pueblo life at mid-century. Born and raised in Laguna Pueblo, he had access to people who shied away from outsiders. He also had strong ties to Zuni Pueblo and was a regular at the Gallup Ceremonial for many years.
Though Marmon came to photography more or less by accident, it all started at an early age. When he was only ten years old he made $2 by taking a picture of a wreck for an insurance company, but he wasn’t instantly taken by that event.
That two-dollar photo was thanks to Lee’s father who had given him a cheap camera and pointed him in the right direction. His father continued to urge him toward a career in photography. Lee tells this story: “I was standing with my father and the snow was falling and a local headman in his eighties came riding up on horseback. My dad pointed out that he was a perfect subject for a picture. He was a magnificent old guy, and known for having saved Laguna’s horses from a raid by the Apaches. Before I could take his picture he passed away. I learned my lesson.”
A few semesters in college, a stint in the army during the Great War, and then back to Laguna, delivering groceries for his father at the trading post. Lee picked up a bulky Speed Graphic and started taking pictures of anything that would hold still. In those days there was still reluctance on the part of the older folks to have their pictures taken. He captured his most famous image through persistence and a little bribery.
Lee Marmon as Grand Marshall at Ceremonial Parade, 2009.
There was a colorful character in the village known as Old Man Jeff. Lee would come across him from time to time, sunning himself next to the church, perhaps, but the old man always refused to have his picture taken. Finally, with the bribe of a fresh cigar, Lee got his picture, which he titled “White Man’s Moccasins” referring to the high-top sneakers Jeff had on.
Lee’s grandfather Robert Marmon came to Laguna from Ohio to run the trading post. Incredibly, he became the first white governor of the Pueblo. He was also a scout against Geronimo. Lee, one quarter Laguna by blood, has jokingly referred to himself as “the blue-eyed Indian,” which was what he called the bookstore/gallery he ran for some years. The bookstore came out of his friendship with Larry McMurtry who once dated Leslie. But Lee is an artist, not a shopkeeper, and the store is history.
Lee is a vigorous eighty-five years old and the recent years have been kind to him. He has been honored with commissions (photo murals in the Denver airport for example), a number of awards, a spread in New Mexico Magazine, and that excellent book of his work, titled The Pueblo Imagination: Landscape and Memory in the Photography of Lee Marmon.
A proper photograph, to have real value, has to be printed from the original negative, preferably by the photographer himself. Some artists, notably Ansel Adams, do much of their work in the darkroom, manipulating the print significantly from the negative itself, by cropping, burning, and other techniques. Negatives are extremely fragile and Lee told me years ago that the negatives of several of his images, notably a fine shot of the Laguna church, were beginning to suffer from use. “I may not get many more prints of some of them,” he said. He estimates he has more than fifty-five thousand negatives.
Marmon shows a Native sensibility when it comes to humor, notably in the Old Man Jeff image where the subject shares the moment with the artist, a sly smile lurking on his face. One of my prized possessions is a Christmas card Lee gave me years ago. It wasn’t the one sent out publicly, but his private reserve. It was a self-portrait, taken with a timer on the camera, showing Lee reclining against the bank of an arroyo, having his picture taken by a stunningly beautiful woman – stark naked. Sorry I can’t share that image with everyone.
