[3] As a child, Kabotie drew images of Hopi katsinam with bits of coal and earth pigments onto rock surfaces near his home.

[4] He commenced a long association with local archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett, joining him at archaeological excavations at Jemez Springs, New Mexico, and Gran Quivira.

The George Gustav Heye Center in New York City commissioned him to paint a series depicting Hopi ceremonies.

[5][6] Architect Mary Colter commissioned Kabotie to paint murals in her Desert View Watchtower at the Grand Canyon National Park in 1933.

[9] He was an advisor at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, California, where he worked with curators Frederic Huntington Douglas and Rene d'Harnoncourt on a show of Native American art.

[4] In 1940 he was commissioned to reproduce the precontact murals at Awatovi Ruins, which were shown at the Museum of Modern Art and other locations in the United States.

[10] The Museum of Northern Arizona encouraged Kabotie and his cousin Paul Saufkie (1898–1993) to develop a jewelry style unique to Hopi people.

[4] A friend and benefactor, Leslie Van Ness Denman, commissioned Kabotie's first piece of jewelry as a gift to Eleanor Roosevelt.

In 1963 the Hopi Guild moved from Oraibi to a newly constructed building at Second Mesa, Arizona, that included a large showroom and workshop space for the artists.

[citation needed] The high school at Hopi closed, so upon his return from India, Kabotie worked with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board.

[14] In 1977, the Museum of Northern Arizona published his biography,[14] Fred Kabotie: Hopi Indian Artist, co-authored with Bill Belknap.

[16] Kabotie received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945, which enabled him to study Mimbres pottery and write the book, Designs From the Ancient Mimbreños.

Kabotie's work was part of Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (2019–21), a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center.