Julián Martínez, also known as Pocano (1879–1943), was a
San Ildefonso Pueblo
San Ildefonso Pueblo (Tewa: Pʼohwhogeh Ówîngeh ’òhxʷógè ʔówîŋgè"where the water cuts through"
) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States, and a federally recognized tribe, established c. 13 ...
potter,
["Julian Martinez."]
''Smithsonian American Art Museum''. Retrieved 7 April 2012. painter, and the patriarch of a family of
Native American ceramic artists in the United States.
Background
Martínez was born in 1879 in
San Ildefonso Pueblo
San Ildefonso Pueblo (Tewa: Pʼohwhogeh Ówîngeh ’òhxʷógè ʔówîŋgè"where the water cuts through"
) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States, and a federally recognized tribe, established c. 13 ...
, New Mexico. His name, Pocano, means "Coming of the Spirits" in
Tewa
The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. They comprise the following communities:
* ...
. He worked as a farmer, general laborer, and janitor, in addition to being an artist. He was elected governor of San Ildefonso.
[Lester 344]
Martínez married matriarch potter
Maria Martinez
Maria Montoya Martinez (1887, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico – July 20, 1980, San Ildefonso Pueblo) was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian, and o ...
, and together they had a son
Popovi Da, who also potter.
[Lester 343] Maria is considered the preeminent creator of San Ildefonso blackware pottery; however Julian contributed to her accomplishments. Their son Popovi Da continued innovating Pueblo ceramic arts; his work has been widely exhibited and collected.
Martinez died on March 6, 1943, in San Ildefonso Pueblo.
Work
The Martinez family was instrumental in reviving the San Ildefonso and creating the San Ildefonso
black-on-black, matte-on-shiny pottery technique. The Martínez family is credited for inventing a technique that would allow for areas of the pottery to have a matte finish and other areas to be a glossy jet black.
Martínez, with help from anthropologist,
Edgar Lee Hewett researched historical designs and reproduced them on the pottery, later modifying classical Pueblo designs to create his own.
Martínez was also an easel painter.
He painted scenes of
Pueblo
In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
rituals as well as abstract designs with colored pencil and watercolor, and featured Western figurative types against blank backgrounds. He painted murals at the former
Santa Fe Indian School
The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...
in
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label= Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. The name “S ...
and
Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States.
Established ...
in Colorado.
Martínez was part of an art movement called the
San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group, which included such noted artists as
Alfonso Roybal,
Tonita Peña,
Abel Sanchez (Oqwa Pi), Crecencio Martinez, and Encarnación Peña.
Public collections
The artwork of Maria and Julian Martinez can be found in the following public collections.
*
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...
, New York
*
Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Arizona
*
Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas
*
Arizona State Museum
The Arizona State Museum (ASM), founded in 1893, was originally a repository for the collection and protection of archaeological resources. Today, however, ASM stores artifacts, exhibits them and provides education and research opportunities. It ...
, Tucson
*
Cincinnati Art Museum
The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ov ...
, Ohio
*
Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts, Ohio
*
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio
*
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, Hanover, New Hampshire
*
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...
, Colorado
*
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Norman, Oklahoma
*
Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...
, Tulsa, Oklahoma
*
Joslyn Art Museum
The Joslyn Art Museum is the principal fine arts museum in the state of Nebraska, United States. Located in Omaha, it was opened in 1931 at the initiative of Sarah H. Joslyn in memory of her husband, businessman George A. Joslyn. It is the only m ...
, Omaha, Nebraska
*
Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
*
Millicent Rogers Museum
The Millicent Rogers Museum is an art museum in Taos, New Mexico, founded in 1956 by the family of Millicent Rogers. Initially the artworks were from the multi-cultural collections of Millicent Rogers and her mother, Mary B. Rogers, who donated ...
, Taos, New Mexico
*
Montclair Art Museum
The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...
, Montclair, New Jersey
*
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
, Minnesota
*
Museum of New Mexico The Museum of New Mexico is a collection of museums, historic sites, and archaeological services governed by the State of New Mexico. It currently consists of six divisions : the Palace of the Governors state history museum, the New Mexico Museum o ...
, Santa Fe
*
Museum of Northern Arizona
The Museum of Northern Arizona is a museum in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, that was established as a repository for Indigenous material and natural history specimens from the Colorado Plateau.
The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist ...
, Katherine Harvey Collection, Flagstaff
*
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers.
The museum has three ...
,
George Gustav Heye Center
The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...
, New York
*
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers.
The museum has three ...
, Washington, D.C.
*
Newark Museum
The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, A ...
, Newark, NJ
*
Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts, Owensboro, Kentucky
*
Philbrook Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...
, Tulsa, Oklahoma
*
Riverside Museum
The Riverside Museum (formerly known as the Glasgow Museum of Transport) is a museum in Glasgow, housed in a building at Pointhouse Quay in the Glasgow Harbour regeneration district of Glasgow, Scotland. The building opened in June 2011, winnin ...
, New York
*
School for Advanced Research
The School for Advanced Research (SAR), until 2007 known as the School of American Research and founded in 1907 as the School for American Archaeology (SAA), is an advanced research center located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Since 1967, the s ...
, Santa Fe, New Mexico
*
Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.
*
Southwest Museum of the American Indian
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County) canyon and stream. The muse ...
, Los Angeles
*
University of Pennsylvania Museum
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighb ...
, Philadelphia
*
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medi ...
, Santa Fe, New Mexico
See also
*
List of Native American artists
This is a list of visual artists who are Native Americans in the United States. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 defines "Native American" as being enrolled in either federally recognized tribes or state recognized tribes or "an individua ...
*
Native American pottery
*
Black-on-black ware
References
Notes
*Lester, Patrick D. ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters.'' Tulsa, OK: SIR Publications, 1995. .
* Crawford, Virginia. "American Indian Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 1 (1982): 3-17.
External links
Julian Martinez art National Museum of the American Indian
Julian Martinez art Smithsonian American Art Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Julian
1879 births
1943 deaths
Artists from New Mexico
Native American painters
Native American potters
Painters from New Mexico
Pueblo artists
20th-century American painters
American male painters
People from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico
20th-century ceramists
Native American male artists
20th-century Native Americans
20th-century American male artists