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Old Lady Long Salt's Summer Hogan (from the series The Enduring Navaho)
Old Lady Long Salt's Summer Hogan (from the series The Enduring Navaho)
Old Lady Long Salt's Summer Hogan (from the series The Enduring Navaho)

Old Lady Long Salt's Summer Hogan (from the series The Enduring Navaho)

Artist (American, 1891 - 1979)
Date1945
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 15 7/16 × 19 5/16 in. (39.2 × 49.1 cm)
Support: 15 13/16 × 19 11/16 in. (40.2 × 50 cm)
Mat: 22 × 26 in. (55.9 × 66 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Jill Warren, 2015
Object number2015.11.1
DescriptionClearing under low trees with three groups of Navajo women at work and a cat in the foreground. Kitchen pots and pans and a box of salt at center of composition.
Text Entries
Gilpin made this image on a trip to the Navajo Mountain area in southeastern Utah. She came across the summer Hogan of Old Lady Long Salt, whose great-granddaughter-in-law told the artist that the elder had been at the Bosque Redondo reservation in southern New Mexico and at age eight had walked back to the Navajo lands. Gilpin estimated the woman’s age at 94 years and reported five generations of women working together at the Hogan. Gilpin was keenly interested in Navajo customs and noted that because this was a remote area it had retained “much old Navaho life.”
Gilpin used the spelling “Navaho” when referring to the Dine, which has been altered in this record to reflect the current style of spelling it, “Navajo.”

 

The date inscribed by the artist appears hesitant or possibly altered. Subsequent research (see below) and the artist’s published account suggests that the picture was made in 1953 or 1954.

 

The photograph has been published under titles that differ slightly from the inscribed titles. In “Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace” (1986),  Sandweiss publishes a print from the Amon Carter collection as “A Navaho Summer Hogan” with the date of 1953. In Gilpin’s book “The Enduring Navaho” (1968), it appears with the title “The summer hogan of Old Lady Long Salt” and no date.




See Laura Gilpin, “The Enduring Navaho,” University of Texas Press, 1968, p. 68-72 for reproduction and discussion of image. Gilpin writes that “in the summer of 1954” she and her companion made a trip to the Navajo Mountain area in southeastern Utah. They spent some time at the summer hogan of Old Lady Long Salt whose great-granddaughter-in-law told Gilpin that the elder had been at the Bosque Redondo reservation and at age eight had walked back to the Navajo lands. Gilpin describes the hogan and says that five generations of women were there and estimated the woman’s age at 94. According to her description, in the photograph Old Lady Long Salt is looking at “my book of pictures,” presumably an album she had brought to share. Gilpin was interested in Navaho customs and noted that this area was remote and thus had “much old Navaho life” (p. 69).


See Martha Sandweiss, “Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace,” Amon Carter Museum, 1986, p. 91 for a reproduction and description. Sandweiss dates the picture to 1953 and writes that it was made on a trip that Gilpin made to the Navajo Mountain area in southeastern Utah. There she found the summer hogan of Old Lady Salt, a 94-year-old who had been part of the exile of the Navajo to the Bosque Redondo reservation near Fort Sumner. Sandweiss notes that she is surrounded by four generations of female descendents in the picture and talks about Gilpin’s sensitivity to Navajo customs.


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