GREY COHOE
Grey Cohoe (1944–1991) was a Navajo (Diné) painter and printmaker. Works by Grey Cohoe are available through Trotta-Bono Contemporary, a by-appointment gallery specializing in contemporary Native American art in Santa Monica, California.
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Tocito Waits for Boarding School Bus
To Dawn Drummer They Rhyme
- GREY COHOE -
Navajo, 1944-1991
Grey Cohoe was a distinguished Diné (Navajo) artist, educator, printmaker, writer, and poet whose work played an important role in the development of contemporary Native American art. Born in Tocito, New Mexico, Cohoe was deeply influenced by his Navajo heritage and the teachings of his father, Woodrow Cohoe, a medicine man. He studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe and the College of Santa Fe, where he developed a distinctive visual language that blended traditional Diné imagery, symbolism, and storytelling with modern approaches to painting and printmaking.
Throughout his career, Cohoe worked across painting, drawing, and printmaking, creating expressive works that explored Navajo ceremonies, spirituality, cultural memory, and contemporary Indigenous identity. A respected educator as well as an artist, he later taught at IAIA, mentoring a new generation of Native artists. His work was exhibited widely, including at the Smithsonian Institution, the Heard Museum, the Philbrook Art Center, and in international touring exhibitions organized by the United States Department of State and United States Information Agency. He received numerous honors, including awards from Arizona State University, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, and the Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition.
Cohoe’s work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions including the Philbrook Museum of Art, the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, the Arizona State Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, which houses his etching Battle of the Night Birds (1967) as part of the James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection. His legacy continues through these institutional holdings, which recognize his contributions to twentieth-century Native American art and his role in expanding the visual language of contemporary Diné expression.