Helen Hardin (1943-1984) Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh - Little Standing Spruce was from Santa Clara Pueblo.  From the very beginning of her career, was at the cutting edge of Indian-influenced art. Her art, though obviously drawing on her Indian heritage and tradition, was very much in the mainstream of modern aesthetics.

This painting of Hardin's is truly a work of exceptional drafting skills and superlative technical rendering. Quite extraordinary and striking, as the work of Hardin tends to be, it displays a true sense of the complexities and intricacies involved in the creation of such a piece.

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Helen Hardin (1943-1984) Tsa-Sah-Wee-Eh - Little Standing Spruce was from Santa Clara Pueblo.  From the very beginning of her career, she was at the cutting edge of Indian-influenced art. Her art, though obviously drawing on her Indian heritage and tradition, was very much in the mainstream of modern aesthetics. This fine acrylic painting on artist board is dated 1979. It is a drawing of a bird, which she describes as from Santo Domingo Pueblo.  It is a work exhibiting exceptional drafting skills and superlative technical rendering. It is quite exceptional and striking, as the work of Helen Hardin tends to be, with a true sense of the complexities and intricacies involved in the creation of such a work 

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A large part of the charm of Hopi pottery is the warm orange blush achieved during firing and deep black fire clouds resulting from firing.  Coal firing is responsible for these attributes.  This bowl has both a warm blush and a beautiful array of fire clouds on the exterior.  The vessel shape has been referred to as a helmet-shape, based on such shapes of World War I helmets, but there certainly is no connection between the Hopi's development of this shape and the commercial development of the war helmets.

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This is an extraordinary fine Santo Domingo serving bowl that follows the pueblo's traditions in every aspect of materials, construction and design. The interior of the bowl is decorated in black vegetal paint over the traditional cream-colored rag-wiped bentonite slip. The exterior is without decoration, with the exception of a wide red band wiped onto the surface just below the rim. The natural clay exterior of the bowl was stone polished.

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Carlos Dunlap, Jr. was the son of San Ildefonso potter Carmelita Dunlap and San Carlos Apache artist Carlos Dunlap, Sr. He was an excellent potter and painter of pottery. His, as well as his mother's, pottery was generally large in scale and thick-walled-more so than traditional San Ildefonso wares. He painted his pieces with traditional designs executed with precise detail.

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During the time that Indian Trader C. G. Wallace was active at Zuni Pueblo, in the 1920s and later, Zuni potters responded to the increased demand for pottery.  The 1920s was a revival period for pottery after a lapse of a couple decades of less interest. 

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Neil David, Sr. (1944-Present) is nationally known for his paintings and carvings of Hopi-Tewa clowns called Koshare.  He has an innate feel for picturing their antics when they are interacting with Katsinas or when they are acting solo and being gluttons.

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Stevenson and Cushing, in 1879, and Stevenson, again, in 1880, made collections at Cochiti Pueblo and they noted that the majority of pieces being made there were figurative pieces and effigy vessels, with almost no ollas or bowls being made.  (Batkin 1987).  This has been a long tradition at Cochiti. It is interesting that they were so involved in making figurative pottery for tourist consumption when they really were not near Route 66 or other tourist traveled locations. They must have traveled into Santa Fe to sell their pottery to traders in town because it is not likely that tourists traveled the road to the pueblo.

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I am not familiar with the artist of this storyteller figurine, Louise E. Suina, but she certainly did an excellent job of making and decorating this one.  The intricate apron on the adult is beautifully painted and each of the 14 children is painted to perfection.  The boys are outfitted with a cowboy hat, baseball cap or a traditional headband.  The girls are dressed in traditional pueblo dresses and some carry items in their hands.  Overall, this is an excellent southwest Indian pottery storyteller figurine presentation.  It is signedLouise E. Suina, Cochiti, N.Mex. on the underside.

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Michael Kabotie was the son of famed Hopi artist, Fred Kabotie.  Michael passed away at the early age of 67 years at the height of his fame.  He had attended Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas in 1961.  In the 1970s and 1980s, he was the spokesman for the Artist Hopid, a group of Hopi artists who worked together. 

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Navajo textiles woven in the Ganado and Klagetoh areas of the reservation are quite similar in style and often it is difficult to determine which region the weaver is from.  Generally, weavers from the Ganado region use a large amount of red in their textiles.  Patterns associated with weavers from the Klagetoh area consist of a large diamond in the center of the textile surrounded by a border or borders of stepped and hook designs.

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Split leaves, such as the orange and black ones on this jar, have existed on Zia Pueblo pottery since around the mid-1800s.  This evolved by the 1880s to more plants, stems, flowers and berries usually associated with birds.  The blooming plants on this jar have their roots attached to the pair of lower framing lines and they blossom upward into beautiful dotted flowers.  The Zia birds associated with the design have their feet resting on the framing lines and they stand with head upright and wings raised above the body.  The birds are outlined in black but the flowers are not outlined. 

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Rose Gonzales was born at San Juan Pueblo (now Ohkay Owingeh) in 1900 and, soon after, became an orphan when her parents died from the flu epidemic. She and her sister survived by attending the Santa Fe Indian School in residence. She married Robert Gonzales of San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1920 and moved to his pueblo at that time. She learned the art of pottery making from Robert's mother, Ramona Sanchez Gonzales. 

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Rosalie Simbola Aguilar (1898-1947) was originally from Picuris Pueblo.  In 1922, at the age of 24, she married Joe Aguilar (1898-1965) of San Ildefonso Pueblo and they settled there.  The couple had eleven children over a period of twenty-four years, yet, Rosalie and Joe found time to produce beautiful pottery in the San Ildefonso style. Rosalie, in addition to producing black-on-black pottery also made carved designs.  She and Rose Gonzales were the only two potters at the pueblo to do carved wares and both were imports from other pueblos. 

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I am confident Nampeyo of Hano made this bowl. I believe she made it between 1890 and 1895. The reasoning for this attribution to Nampeyo is based on a number of clues.

The shape and construction of the bowl, along with the design elements and artistic execution, all point to her hand. The Polacca Style C designs she used on this bowl appear to be adapted from popular 1860 to 1890 Polacca wares. Who else was using these early designs but Nampeyo?

In the 1900 federal census, only Nampeyo and one other woman called themselves "potters." (Kramer, p.34). We know, according to Fewkes, that Nampeyo began to "cleverly imitate" Sikyatki ware as early as 1895. Based on this, I believe some of the pieces she made from Polacca wares predated those made from Sikyatki wares and were as early as 1890.

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Lena Chio Charlie (ca.1908-ca.1960s) Corn Woman was a member of the Corn Clan, as was Nampeyo of Hano. She was a sister of Irene Shupla and cousins of Sadie Adams, Patty Maho, Ruth Paymella and grandmother to famed Hopi-Tewa artist Neil David, Sr.

Her pottery is desirable by collectors for its very high quality and warm orange glow. Her designs are beautifully conceived and executed. She often used stippling, in the style of Nampeyo of Hano, as seen on this jar.

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The jar is certainly of the quality of those by Mary Histia.  It sits straight, is thin-walled and was decorated with precision.  Designs within medallions are documented to Mary Histia.  There is a Mary Histia jar documented in Dillingham that features the same stepped elements as shown in orange in this jar.  In the Dillingham illustration, the four stepped elements are centered with a flower and in this jar they are centered with a propeller-like element.

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Changes in traditional Acoma pottery occurred as early as 1880 with the arrival of the railroad in New Mexico, and continued in the 1930s when Route 66 was built along the path of the old AT&SF (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe) Railway line.  These events provided Acoma and Laguna potters with a steady source of tourists as buyers for their wares.

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Christies Auction in New York recently sold a Chinese bowl for $11.7 Million U. S. dollars.  The buyer was a man from China. It is refreshing to see that he is interested enough in his country's art to spend serious money to purchase it and have it return to his nation.

If only we could foster that interest in the United States for our countrymen to more seriously want to collect rare, early Pueblo pottery. There is probably not a Pueblo pot on the market priced at over $250,000, and most are not priced over $25,000, yet, there is no national urge to purchase them by some collectors and museums.

We do appreciate those clients who value historic pottery as we value it and we praise their efforts to collect and protect it for future generations.  Each historic Pueblo pottery vessel should be seen as a national treasure.   Their preservation should be a national priority for museums and individual collectors.

Thank you,-Al

l 

"Andrew Tsihnahjinnie, in many respects-incisive interpretation, spontaneity of brushwork, originality of color, vigor of draftsmanship and vitality of action-had no equals among the artists of the studio and perhaps few superiors among modern painters. If equanimity and self-confidence were to rule his artistic abilities, Tsihnahjinnie might well be one of America's top-ranking painters. In the brief seasons when he felt freed to paint the things he knew so deeply, without troubled concern for doing otherwise, his work attained a trenchant beauty, unique in modern art. Dorothy Dunn, 1963

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