Distinguished Navaho Indian

The Village Maker of Moccasins

Washburn spent about three months in Arizona, mostly around Tuba, where he did a number of portraits. Washburn wrote that the portraits were completed by the end of 1916; he worked directly on each plate without preliminary sketches, and printed them himself with a small press that he had brought along. There are a few prints that have inscriptions in 1917. According to an old gallery card, he eventually contracted pneumonia, and returned to San Francisco to recover.