More random biographical information about the French-Serbian-American writer, anthropologist, collector, sportsman, painter, teacher, muralist, cook, Paul Coze.

Wes Sylvester, a student and friend of Paul Coze from 1964 until his death in 1974, found the first web page in short order, and kindly shared quite a bit of information. This is Wes talking:

Paul's application for his Social Security Card, dated May 1943, in Pasadena, California, he gave his full name as Paul Jean Coze. His father was Edouard Coze and his mother was Princess Sonia Dabija.

Jay Datus, who did the murals in the old First National Bank on first street, owned the "Kachina School of Art", Pauls studio was called, "Studio Paul Coze", it was located at 4040 E. Elm Street, which was the original 100 year old ranch house from when that area was still wide open spaces. After Paul's death the property (1 1/4 ac.) and house sold for $38.000.

Many years ago, after they removed the Phoenix Indian Hospital Fountain, I attempted to acquire the Hano Clown that sat on top of the rainbow, but to no avail. I'm afraid a "bad luck symbol" didn't bring down the fountain. Paul told me he had experimented with some new materials which, frankly, didn't work, and it started falling apart within a year. Too bad, it was a beautiful work!

At one time I had thought of doing a book on Paul and Barry Goldwater told me: "Don't just talk about it just do it!" Barry Goldwater and Paul were good friends. Barry would call Paul "Pablo."

I drove around to 4040 East Elm Street in Phoenix, and it's plainly a smaller, older structure in the midst of a bunch of larger suburban houses, but down an allee of trees and apparently well kept, with a tile sign out front: Casa de Suenos, House of Dreams.

This excerpt from one of his Arizona Highway articles gives you some idea what it was like, hanging out with Paul Coze during a visit to the reservation in the mid-1950s:

A summer day my wife, Thora, and I were sitting facing the west wall of the Walpi plaza. The Kachinas had danced and clowns were about. We were (according to the traditional southwestern expression) the "only white people there" and the clowns came to my spouse and asked her, "Is this awful thing your husband?" But they got a good answer from her -- "He is my wife," she said. So they let her alone and came to me. I had levis and boots on and my hat was old, so I could really not worry too much and was ready for the worst. "You go to him," one said, pointing to another clown far away, "and tell him he is a Navaho from the waist...up." I arose. "I'll go and tell him all right," I answered, "but if he is a Navaho from the waist up, his ears are Navaho and I'd rather sing to him." "Him" was one clown sitting with his back to us on the north side of the court. "Fine," they all said, "sing!" and they spat a little toward my boots. So I went slowly to "him," stood in the middle of the plaza and uttered the first two coyote yells of the yebetchai song; then I hit the ground with my right foot and at full voice gave my best imitation of the famous Navajo song. Finally I started to dance. That surprised the crowd and the jokers. They immediately followed me -- and went behind me and we danced for ten minutes and "him" rushed toward us and joined the fun. When exhausted and my throat dried by the falsetto, I stopped. So I had to mimic the "To-eu, to-eu," and washing the hands in fire and other strange things I did notice when traveling in the sage land with Tom Dodge -- and I did somewhat of a Feather Dance around my fountain pen, moving back and forth as in the "Water Way." Then the Kachinas arrived and I sat down in respect.

From "We Met at Camelback!", a history of the local Scottsdale landmark resort, Paul makes a brief appearance on page 67:

Paul Coze, a French artist who had made a study of Indian life, lectured on the magic power of various Indian tribes. When he left Paris in the spring of 1938, a clairvoyant predicted that we would stay permanently in the United States instead of the six months planned -- and that is what happened. He met Jack in New York and later visited at Camelback where he began his studies of the American Indian. At the Inn he introduced a game called "cholla" -- something like polo.

The "Jack" in that sentence is Jack Stewart, the hotelier in charge of Camelback Inn for long years. About 30% of that paragraph is incorrect, about 20% is supported by other sources, and the rest is dubious. Jack Stewart was a publicist after all.

But that little paragraph does not come anywhere close to describing the nature of the game of Cholla, aka the Roping Polo Game, or Paul's role at Camelback in 1938. Paul explains it in more depth in an article in Arizona Highways, from January 1955. I can't transcribe the whole thing right now, but he starts:

At that time, there was no bar at Camelback Inn. The grounds were beautiful already, and in those years, tourists did not come to resorts as early as they do now. It was October, 1938. I had a studio by the swimming pool and was handling the publicity pictures. As always, my main hobby was fancy roping. I learned roping, strangely enough, in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1912... I was known in those days as the French Cowboy (and) every Saturday I directed the Gymkhana at Camelback Inn. Well, what does one do if one gets tired of roping a stake or an old saddle? What does one do if there are no calves or goats or if one is too polite to rope a dog, or too ambitious to rope a chicken? And not being in Paris, unable to rope girls!

Out of this dilemma, and after consulting with the great football coach Robert Zuppke who happened to be at hand, Paul invents an extremely dangerous-looking polo game involving two teams vying for a two-foot sort of padded jack. By the beginning of World War II, he says, he'd organized sixteen teams from Texas to Oregon, had broken his leg playing in the rain at Yellowstone, appeared in a Paramount short filmed in Victorville, and published the Rules and Regulations over the address

Roping Cholla Hdq.

4040 E. Elm St.

Phoenix, Arizona

Former student Patricia Geary was also kind enough to sit down and share a good deal of information:

I have just taken a whirlwind tour via Goggle and Wikipedia of Paul Coze’s life and times, and am struck by the fact that I came to know such a man!

Paul Coze was my painting teacher, for four years in the early fifties, and was well versed in all the aspects of traditional oil painting, glazing and mural art, was by choice a traditionalist with a subtle surrealist bent, and had a very deep love and knowledge of the American Indian art and cultures of the Southwest, as you most probably know. He also served as Arizona's French Consulate for many years and was awarded the French Legion of Honor.

I liked what the Royal Alberta Museum’s publication Mammoth Tracks had to say about his work regarding the Indians of Western Canada from1928 to 1934 - under Curatorial Views. I think that what Evelyne Boseoneault says about the man sums up all that I could say:

In Paul Coze I met a very human, curious, helpful, skillful, active and idealistic person. He was most certainly someone who did a lot for the comprehension and preservation of aboriginal cultures.

Curiously I didn’t find very much about his fascination with the Indians of the southwest, which came later most around 1946-47 after he move to the US. He set up a studio in Pasadena for a number of years, before settling in Phoenix/Scottsdale, I’m sure primarily to be able to travel more easily to the Hopi Mesas, Navajo Country, and to the Pueblos of New Mexico.

I know for a fact of his easy acceptance by Indian friends and elders in these tribal communities. His knowledge and respect of their sacred religious and ritual life gave him access to witness and record mentally, not by photographing, their ceremonies, not only in the dusty plazas but deep into the kivas long before others were able to do so. Certainly Edward Curtis made photos long before Paul’s southwestern heyday in the late 40’s and 50’s, but I think that he also had a much deeper intuitive understanding and respect for the spiritual, animistic, and magical content of the rites he recorded, painted and loved.

He knew many of the elders and clansmen on the Hopi Mesas and his presence was quietly accepted: he was good friends with Maria Martinez at her home and pottery at San Ildefonso, and could attend the fiercely cold nights with Zuni Shalako and Mud Heads dancing. Paul could imitate the Navajo Nightway Chants as good as any. He did so I think because even though French-Serbian by birth, he longed to be aligned with the ethical-spiritual-peaceful spirit and goodwill found at the root of Anasazi lineages, pueblo peoples, and the Hopi in particular. I think he was an anthropologist at heart.

It might be that his mural work at Mesa Verde Park was one of his most masterful, though largely fantasy, depicting aboriginal life. I never saw it but I remember seeing pictures of the mural.

He taught classical painting techniques and aesthetics and sold paintings and portraits of the socially privileged to make a living and pay for his travels. He created an atmosphere of dynamic enthusiasm for life, living and doing what he loved. He was an excellent cook, included his students on many excursions to the inner reaches of Mexico, its museums, people and mural art, he arranged for trips to the bullfights in the heat of Nogales, he helped found the Virgin of Guadalupe Celebration of December 12th, in Scottsdale, he created art forums and gatherings where he brought together guest lecturers and attention to the writings of Romaine Gary and the budding art and philosophy of Sister Mary Corita - before she jumped over the wall, and where he voiced his disapproval of the “outrageous blasphemy of the cubism of Picasshole,” and many other stimulating happenings! A rarity in the Arizona in the 1950’s!

Check out his connections with the Heard Museum, if you haven’t already; I know he loved the place, and was welcome in the archives. He was a personal friend of the ancient, Mabel Dodge Luhan of Taos, and the husband “Dodge” in her long long name before their divorce and death.

Enough to say he was a man who lived life to the fullest, enjoyed the “performance” and “persona” of being French, an intellectual, AND an artist, who gave much of himself to others, and had few regrets. Who could ask for more?!

 

There's more to come.