Acoma Pueblo Intricately Designed Black-on-white Design Olla [SOLD]

Rebecca Lucario is known for a variety of pottery shapes, particularly for ollas, plates, and seed jars.  She has produced intricate fine-line designs, Mimbres animal designs and geometric designs. This is an excellent example of her early work and well illustrates her already advanced design abilities.  She had only begun making pottery around 1965 and completed this jar in 1989.  She has always been recognized as one of the finest potters at Acoma Pueblo today and has been rewarded with many awards at Santa Fe Indian Market, including Best of Show for a shallow dish in 2000.

This jar has a very complicated black-over-white design that may be viewed as the oval black elements being the design, or, the white portion enclosed by those black oval elements being the design.  The design may be viewed as each element stacked upon another, or viewed as diagonal white designs curving in a band from the rim to the base.  The design undergoes a subtle gradation in size within the elements from the base to the point of maximum diameter at the shoulder, then again, the variant diamonds decrease in size up the neck to the rim. This truly is an exceptional piece, with a technical and artistic virtuosity scarcely rivaled among potters today. We consider Rebecca one of the premier contemporary potters, at Acoma or any Pueblo. Signed Acoma, NM R. Lucario.

Condition: original condition

Provenance: this Acoma Pueblo Intricately Designed Black-on-white Design Olla is From the collection of John W. Barry of Davis, California, who commissioned it from the potter in 1989.

Recommended Reading: Acoma & Laguna Pottery by Rick Dillingham (1952-1994)