Mystique

Mystique, 2002, lithograph by R.C. Gorman. This later-period masterwork presents a standing Navajo woman in a dreamlike desert landscape charged with spiritual mystery and magic. She wears a purple long-sleeved blouse beneath a red skirt that flows dramatically around her form, while turquoise jewelry featuring crescent moons and star symbols adorns her neck. Her long black hair moves with the desert wind, and she gazes thoughtfully into the distance. Beside her blooms an ethereal desert flower—perhaps a night-blooming desert lily—rendered in pale pink and white. The background reveals purple-tinted mesas against a starry twilight sky with a shooting star trailing across the heavens. Gorman’s use of gradient color and his increasingly dreamlike imagery in his later work creates a composition that transcends literal landscape to suggest the inner spiritual realm.