Benita St I

Benita State I, a 1981 R.C. Gorman lithograph, offers a quiet portrait of a kneeling Navajo woman shown from behind as she lovingly cradles a red-and-black geometric Acoma olla. She wears a flowing white blouse over a soft gray-green sash, her dark hair twisted into a traditional Navajo chongo bun, and the whole figure rests on a warm honey-yellow ground that deepens to sepia around the edges. Gorman’s lyrical contours and muted pastel underpainting lend a devotional stillness to the scene, emphasizing the sacred relationship between potter and pot. Signed and numbered from a limited edition, Benita St I is a canonical Gorman image and a prized acquisition for collectors of Navajo pottery art, Southwest lithographs, and museum-quality Gorman prints.