Beatien Yazz

born 1928 Wide Ruins, Arizona

BiographyBeatin Yazz (Little No Shirt), also known as Jimmy Todd, was born in eastern Arizona and grew up on the Navajo reservation. His mother's grandmother was a survivor of The Long Walk and his father was handyman for Sallie and William Lippincott who owned Wide Ruins trading post. The Lippincotts took Yazz on trips with them to Gallup, Santa Fe and the Hopi Mesas, among other places and he would draw or paint his impressions of the trip. His first exhibition was when he was twelve years old and the following year he had a solo exhibition at the Art Center in La Jolla California. He attended Santa Fe Indian School for two years starting in 1943 and several other art schools over the years, not always staying until the end of the terms, including at Mills College in the summer of 1947 where he studied under Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1944, he was in a feature story published in Collier's written by Alberta Hannum, an author who had visited the Lippincotts and their trading post. Hannum published the two fictionalized biographies of Yazz, which he illustrated. During World War II, Yazz lied about his age to join the Marines where he served as a Code Talker. After the war he returned to the reservation to paint and won numerous awards for his work. He also created illustrations for children's books. In the 1970s, Yazz began to suffer from severe eye problems that prevented Yazz from painting after 1991. The subjects of nearly all his paintings is related to Native American experience, usually containing people and animals, and daily life using fine lines and minimal backgrounds. Today his work is in collections including the Denver Art Museum, Wheel Wright Museum of The American Indian, Philbrook Museum of Art, and the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles.

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