YAZZ, Beatien 1928-

PERSONAL: Original name, James Toddy; also known as Little No Shirt; born March 5, 1928, near Wide Ruins, AZ. Education: Attended Mills College, 1947, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Adobe Gallery, 413 Romero NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104.

CAREER: Painter and illustrator. Worked as officer of the Navajo Police Department, Fort Defiance, AZ; art teacher at Indian school, Carson City, NV. Exhibitions: Held solo exhibitions at Southwest Museum, Heard Museum, La Jolla Gallery of Art, and Illinois State Museum; represented in group shows, including work at Mitchell Indian Museum, Amarillo Art Center, and Navajo Nation Museum; widely represented in permanent collections, including those at Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, U.S. Department of the Interior, Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Man, and National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, Navajo code talker during World War II; served in Pacific theater.

AWARDS, HONORS: First-place award, Heard Museum Fair Guild and Indian Market, 1978; nine awards from Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonies, 1968-87; honors from annual Indian art exhibition, Philbrook Museum of Art, 1968-72; award from Red Cloud Indian Art Show, 1976.

WRITINGS:

(Illustrator) Alberta Hannum, Spin a Silver Dollar, Viking (New York, NY), 1945.

(Illustrator) Alberta Hannum, Paint the Wind, Viking (New York, NY), 1958.

(Illustrator) Stan Steiner, The Last Horse, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1961.

(Illustrator) Charles G. Newcomb, The Smoke Hole, Naylor Co. (San Antonio, TX), 1968.

(With Sallie R. Wagner and J. J. Brody; and illustrator) Yazz, Navajo Painter, Northland Press (Flagstaff, AZ), 1983.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

St. James Guide to Native North American Artists, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1998, pp. 55-57.

periodicals

Arizona Highways, July, 1956, Linzee King Davis, "Modern Navajo Water-Color Painting."*