Gallup Ceremonial Woman is a 1992 R.C. Gorman oil pastel returning to one of his enduring portrait themes. A woman stands in a warmly draped red-orange dress, the pastel’s soft edges and sculpted folds giving the figure a quiet, ceremonial presence against a pale cream ground. Where the 1979 lithograph rendered the subject in print, this original pastel shows Gorman working the same theme directly by hand, with the tactile surface only pastel allows.
As a one-of-a-kind original tied to a beloved editioned image, this piece is a significant opportunity for collectors of R.C. Gorman originals, Native American portraiture, and Southwest works on paper.
