Rarely do I paint on the spot any more, for it is not a realistic picture that I wish to produce, but impressions and moods.
Mac Schweitzer, Tucson Daily Citizen, June 16, 1952
Mac built close relationships with several Hopi and Navajo (Diné) families that she and her son Kit visited during summers in northern Arizona. These friends influenced both mother and son greatly; recognizable individuals appear in some of Mac’s artwork. Dr. Fred Eggan, a University of Chicago anthropologist and friend, praised Mac as a maker of “documentary pictures of Hopi and Navajo life,” but her work was more than that. Mac painted expressive scenes of indigenous Southwestern life, breaking stereotypes with her deeply personal connections.
Mac, Kit, and their friends often attended the Easter ceremonies held in several Yaqui (Yoeme) villages around Tucson. Kit made buddies with Yaqui, Tohono Oo’dham, and Mexican-American kids at Menlo Park Elementary School and Roskruge Middle School. Some of these neighbors appear in Mac’s drawings.
Mac’s attraction to cowboys and Western life began with the rodeos held in her hometown of Cleveland in the 1930s. She kept scrapbooks with clippings, cartoons, postcards, and her own drawings of horses and riders. Later her fascination expanded to the world of Indian cowboying in Arizona and New Mexico.
Click on any image in each series below to enlarge and page through the selected images.
Navajo (Diné)
Hopi
Yaqui (Yoeme)
Cowboys
Nobody wanted to be a cowboy as badly as my mother. She was driven by horses!
Kit Schweitzer, interviewed by Ann Hedlund, 2/3/2018
