// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Kenneth Begay a good jeweler? He's a gem.

Kenneth Begay
Born	1913 (1913) Steamboat Canyon, Arizona, U.S.
Died	1977 (aged 63–64)
Known for	Silversmithing, jewelry design
Movement	Modernist Native American jewelry
Children	Harvey Begay

Kenneth Begay (1913–1977) was a Diné (Navajo) silversmith and jewelry designer associated with the development of modernist Native American jewelry in the mid-20th century. Working primarily in Arizona, Begay became known for restrained, precisely fabricated silver jewelry that differed from the heavily stamped and stone-set work commonly produced for the Southwestern tourist trade. Begay has been described as the "father of contemporary Navajo jewelry".

Early life and education

Begay was born in 1913 in Steamboat Canyon, in the eastern part of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He learned silversmithing from Diné silversmith Fred Peshlakai at the Fort Wingate Vocational High School in New Mexico during the 1930s, where he and Art Tafoya were among Peshlakai's apprentices.

Career

He demonstrated silverwork at Babbitt Brothers in Flagstaff, Arizona.

In the 1940s, Begay and his cousin Allen Kee joined John and Virginia Bonnell in the enterprise that became the White Hogan. The shop eventually moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where it became a center for modern Native American silverwork. White Hogan gave Begay considerable latitude to develop his own designs. His work became progressively simpler in form, with greater emphasis on proportion, surface and fabrication than on extensive stamping or stone setting.

He left White Hogan in 1964 and subsequently taught silversmithing and worked for the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild; by the early 1970s he was teaching at Navajo Community College at Many Farms, Arizona. He continued making jewelry until his death in 1977.

Style and critical reception

Begay's work formed part of a broader mid-century shift in Southwestern Native jewelry toward modernist design. Design historian Paula Baxter identifies Begay's work of the 1940s with the emergence of a cleaner modernist style that moved away from forms developed primarily for the tourist market. The Arizona State Museum similarly groups Begay with Charles Loloma and Preston Monongye among the artists who expanded prevailing ideas about the appearance of Southwestern Native jewelry during the mid-20th century.

Begay's jewelry typically relies on the shape and finish of the silver itself rather than dense ornament. He also produced hollowware, flatware and jewelry incorporating materials such as turquoise and desert ironwood. In 1968, Begay was among a group of Native metalworkers, including Loloma, Monongye, the Zuni jeweler Eddie Beyuka and members of the Platero family, who entered solid gold pieces in the annual juried Indian art competitions in Arizona and New Mexico. The Newark Museum of Art describes Begay, Loloma and Monongye as internationally recognized innovators who, between the 1950s and 1970s, introduced new approaches to Native jewelry while retaining Hopi and Navajo aesthetic traditions.

Exhibitions

He and other White Hogan silversmiths were regular participants in the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, an important competitive venue for Native American artists.

His work has continued to appear in museum exhibitions devoted to the development of modern Native American jewelry. The Arizona State Museum featured Begay in Ancient to Modern: Continuity and Innovation in Southwest Native Jewelry and in its associated discussion of White Hogan and the early modernists. The Newark Museum of Art includes his work in its ongoing exhibition Innovators in Southwestern Jewelry, alongside work by Loloma and Monongye. In 2022–2023 the Heard Museum's exhibition Elegant Vessels: A Century of Southwest Silver Boxes included a silver box by Begay among more than 75 works surveying the development of Indigenous silver hollowware. The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian also included Begay in its 2023 exhibition Always in Relation: Artworks from the Schultz Collection.

Museum collections

Begay's work is represented in several museum collections. The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian describes its holdings as having a strong representation of his work and identifies him as one of the important mid-20th-century artists through whom the development of modernist Native jewelry can be traced. The museum's Schultz Collection contains works acquired from Begay during his years at White Hogan and later pieces made during the 1970s.

The National Museum of the American Indian holds jewelry by Begay, including earrings, a belt buckle and a brooch that the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board acquired in the 1960s and transferred to the museum in 2000. The Newark Museum of Art also holds and exhibits Begay's work as part of its collection of Southwestern Native jewelry. The California Academy of Sciences' Elkus Collection of Southwestern Indian Art contains work by Begay among nearly 1,700 examples of historic and contemporary Native American art assembled by Ruth and Charles deYoung Elkus.

Personal life

Begay's son, Harvey Begay (1938–2009), worked in his father's Scottsdale workshop while in high school and college and later became a jeweler and goldsmith.

Awards

Begay's work received numerous awards at Southwestern fairs and exhibitions during the 1950s.