Vintage Boots: July 2012

Waterproof Moccasins

Marmon took his first photograph in 1936 at age 11, of a motor vehicle accident on the old U.S. Route 66 in Laguna. However, it was 11 years later when Marmon began to embrace photography on a professional level.

Lee Marmon's photography career began as a youthful, creative pursuit in 1947, shortly after he returned home to New Mexico from hisWorld War II tour of duty on remote Shemya Island in the far western Aleutians. His father, Henry Marmon, put a professional qualitySpeed Graphic camera in 22-year-old Lee's hands, and suggested that he take photographs of the tribal elders, "so we'll have something to remember them by." Photography lessons were scarce on the high desert in the 1940s but it was a practice that young Lee embraced with commitment and enthusiasm.

Waterproof Moccasins

The Moccasin House

Marmon's works were also featured in the Peabody Award-winning PBS series, "Surviving Columbus". A collection of Marmon's best-known works are featured in his award-winning 2004 book, "The Pueblo Imagination",^[4] which he wrote in collaboration with poets Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz, and his oldest daughter, acclaimed novelist Leslie Marmon Silko.

Lee Marmon was born into circumstances that made him uniquely positioned among beings to create this great visual tapestry. The accumulated volumes of his life's work — thousands of photographs from a bygone chapter in our nation’s cultural history — comprise a priceless gift to America. They are the product of the rare confluence of Lee’s ethnic identity, generational positioning, artistic talent, technological vision, and his own cultural awareness

The Moccasin House

The Moccasin Shop

From 1966 to 1982, Marmon lived and worked in southern California, where he served as the official photographer for the Bob Hope Desert Classic Golf Tournament from 1967 to 1973. He returned to live at Laguna Pueblo in 1982.

In 1972, Marmon was commissioned by then President and Mrs. Richard Nixon for a White House photo collection of tribal pottery from New Mexico.

In May and June 2006, a collection of Marmon's best-known images was on display at the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library on the campus of Phillips Academy in And.over, Massachusetts.

In June, 2006, Marmon was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award

The Moccasin Shop

Minnetonka Moosehide Moccasins

Marmon's most famous portrait is the iconic "White Man's Moccasins" (1954), which has become his signature photograph.^[5] In that image, tribal elder Jeff Sousea, the 85 year old caretaker of the Laguna mission, is sitting in the afternoon sun sporting a traditional headband, traditional beaded necklaces, and a well-worn pair of Keds brand high-top sneakers on his feet. This curious juxtaposition of both traditional tribal and western wear in "White Man's Moccasins" has come to symbolize the great cultural transition that Marmon's works documented on the pueblos in the mid 20th century, as ancient tribal traditions and practices gradually gave way to more modern, western-oriented practices.

Marmon's varied and notable career has extended beyond photography.