Early in his career, his paintings were serene and soothing in tone, but increasingly they had subject matter of bloody wars and men killing animals.
In retrospect, Tahoma's subjects were traditional Indian pursuits such as riding, fishing, and hunting, and he also painted distinctive landscape scenes.
Tahoma lived the life of an average Navajo boy, herding sheep and riding horseback," wrote art historian Clara Lee Tanner.
It is of much debate if Quincy Tahoma was also one of the Navajo Code talkers, who played such a critical part in the winning of World War II in the Pacific.
Due in large measure to his premature death, Tahoma's contribution to Native American art, as well as the triumphs and tragedies in his life, have remained somewhat invisible to the generations that followed[citation needed].