AFA Winter 2019

Antiques & Fine Art 75 2019 collection expanded dramatically in recent years through the generosity of the late Dr. Loren G. Lipson, who sponsored the acquisition of signature works by many of the most important American Indian potters, both historic and contemporary. The collection started in 2011 with a train vessel by Acoma potter Joseph Cerno (born 1947), who in this piece and others collaborated with his wife, Barbara (born 1951) (Fig. 1). The train motif was an especially appropriate place to begin, as the museum’s founder, E. B. Crocker, was instrumental in building the Transcontinental Railroad. The Cernos, along with their son Joseph Jr. (born 1972), are also known for producing large parrot pots and seed jars, the latter rendered with complex historical and natural motifs. Though the names of early potters have been lost to history, three of today’s best-known ceramic families of the Southwest—Nampeyo, who are Hopi-Tewa; Martinez, of San Ildefonso; and Tafoya, from Santa Clara—are represented by up to six generations of ceramists. The most illustrious line of Hopi-Tewa potters began with a woman named Nampeyo (ca. 1856–1942), who was born on First Mesa in Hano, or Tewa Village, located in the eastern part of the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona. Tewa- speaking people of northern New Mexico relocated there to escape the Spanish after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Nampeyo learned the fundamentals of pottery-making from her paternal Hopi grandmother and her Tewa mother. After seeing prehistoric pieces excavated from the village of Sikyátki by anthropologist Jesse Fewkes in 1895, she began to adapt old designs and, in so doing, garnered a reputation (Fig. 2). By selling these pieces to traders, who distributed them widely, and by teaching others in her village her techniques, she started the Sikyátki Revival, which continues to this day. Nampeyo, like other potters to date, did not sign her pieces, as the practice was traditionally viewed as according too much attention to an individua l rather than the communit y, although her daughters and descendants did. When Nampeyo began to lose her sight in 1920, she continued to make coiled pots but relied on her three daughters—Annie Healing Fig. 6: Barbara Gonzales (San Ildefonso, born 1947), Seed Jar, n.d. Earthenware, with inset turquoise and coral, 7¼ x 13½ (diam.) in. Crocker Art Museum; Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D. Fig. 7: Cavan Gonzales (San Ildefonso, born 1970), Jar, n.d. Earthenware, 12¾ x 12¾ (diam.) in. Crocker Art Museum; Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D. (2017.110.8).