Rudolf Carl Gorman was a Navajo artist working around the Taos Valley area in a variety of media including sculpture, ceramics, and lithography. His father was one of the original twenty five Navajo Code Talkers. Gorman studied at Arizona State College (now Northern Arizona University), and further studies took him to Mexico City College (now University of the Americas) where he was influenced by the work of Diego Rivera. Although he attributes much of his inspiration from the "early years living close to nature and Navajo tradition." He has had numerous solo exhibitions across the US and abroad, including Manchester Gallery, Taos, New Mexico (1965, 1966, 1967); University of California, Berkeley (1966); Van Straaten Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (1976); Clay Gallery, New York, New York (1977); Gorman in Deutschland, Galerie Pueblo, Karlsruhe, West Germany (1982); among many others. He has exhibited in untold numbers of one-man shows throughout the United States and the world.  In 1973, he was the only living artist to be included at the show "MASTERWORKS OF THE MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

Gorman's work is in many permanent museum collections. including The Museum of Indian Arts, San Fransisco, CA; The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, OK; U.S. Department of Interior, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; and the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art. His private celebrity collectors include Erma Bombeck, Former Senator Barry Goldwater, David Hartman, Martha Hyer, Lee Marvin, Gregory Peck, and Ruth Warwick.