Picasso of American Indian art, R.C. Gorman dead at age 72

Gorman carved new pathways for Indian artists, who, prior to the late 1960s, often were forced into unrealistic definitions by collectors -- and by a market that relied upon a stereotype of stoic portraits and colorful dancers rooted in the Santa Fe Indian School style.

An Indian who painted strong abstracts and elegant figure studies, and who defied being pigeon-holed, wasn't easy to sell. That might be one of the reasons Gorman decided to take a bold step and open the first Indian-owned fine-art gallery in 1968 on the same street where Taos Society of Artists founder E.L. Blumenschein once lived.

He was born Rudolph Carl Gorman on July 26, 1931, in Chinle, Ariz., the son of the late Carl Gorman -- also a famed Navajo painter and a member of the World War II Code Talkers -- and the late Adele Katherine Brown. From an early age, it was expected that, like his father, R.C. would become an artist.

He said that, as a boy, he herded sheep with his aunts in Canyon de Chelly, where he used to draw on rocks and in sand and mud. His first sculpture was in clay and his first subjects were Mickey Mouse, Shirley Temple and automobiles.