Singing Mother Pottery Figurine by Helen Cordero [SOLD]

Helen Cordero was truly an original artist. Unable to fashion pottery vessels in a manner with which she could be satisfied, she changed her course to figurative pottery, rather than give up altogether. Little did she know that she was starting a new tradition in pueblo pottery production?

She first exhibited her early figurative pottery at a Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblo feast day in the early 1960s. Folk art collector, Alexander Girard, bought all the pieces and encouraged her to make more and bring them to him. He encouraged her to add more children and make larger pieces. When thinking this over, she remembered her grandfather and made an image in his honor with a number of children climbing over him. This was the beginning of the storyteller figurine.

Helen also made other figurines. She made female figurines with Hopi hairstyles, turtles with children on their backs, animals, and nacimientos, female figures with pottery on their heads, and female figures with children.

Helen’s female figurines with children are called Singing Mothers. She did not make female storytellers. All her storyteller figurines are male.

This Singing Mother is from the early 1960s and is exquisite. The one child on her lap is an infant. In Cordero fashion, the female has her eyes closed and her mouth open. The female is wearing an exquisite traditional woven belt. Her dress has an embroidered design at the hem. She wears traditional pueblo moccasins.

The figurine is in excellent condition. Singing Mothers are significantly more rare than Storytellers because Helen made so few of them compared with the larger number of storytellers.

The figurine does not display Helen Cordero's name and pueblo painted on the underside as we are used to seeing. This one has Helen Cordero written in pencil and could have been a notation by the owner rather than a signature by the potter. There is, however, no question regarding whether Helen Cordero made it. It is her work.

Provenance: This figurine was either purchased from Helen at a Santo Domingo feast day in the early 1960s or given by Helen at that time as a gift to the grandmother from whose granddaughter I purchased it. I believe this figurine was indeed made in the very early 1960s before Helen made the first male storyteller figurine in 1964.