Ed Singer Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1951 -

Ed Singer, Navajo, born in Tuba City, A.Z., attended boarding schools in Arizona and Utah, continuing his study of fine art in college at Southern Utah State College and Northern Arizona University. His earnest academic commitment to art history and skillful handling of old master techniques led Singer out of the reservation and into the rapidly developing contemporary art community surrounding his life as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. It was there that his confidence grew out from the material surface of image into content driven compositions. Since then international acclaim from collectors and art critics continues to acknowledge his work for it's contemporary blend of political, Native American driven content and old-master technique. He says that the most meaningful commendations come from the Native friends, family and colleagues that are the core subject of his work. As such, he is sensitive to the stereotype that exists in many southwestern painting collections and works to eliminate all references to demeaning caricatures in landscape as well as figurative compositions. His work is found in corporate, private and museum collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, and in the humble hogans neighboring his home on Gray Mountain. “My portfolio offers an opportunity,” he says, “for Diné to participate in our own pride, to see ourselves as we are today – alive, thriving, secure in our Navajo way of being.”

Editor's note: The scale of the current pastels and drawings are the result of Singer's eye surgery in late 2011. By February 2012 he began to regain his sight. Everything looked crisp, sharply in focus, new, fresh. The jewel tone quality so apparent in these small scale works is the result of the immediate need he felt to pick up the pastel and spend an afternoon looking at one small, seductive detail in his Painted Desert homeland and bring it to life again for himself on the paper.

Gray Mountain is home to the Singer Family. Ed 's childhood included sheep herding chores and sheep camp on top of the mountain at the family summer hogan. The San Francisco Peaks, rise above Flagstaff, Arizona, and the extinct volcano cones just a few miles south of his home on the Navajo reservation.