The Aguilar Family is a
Native American family of
potters
A potter is someone who makes pottery.
Potter may also refer to:
Places United States
*Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US
* Potter, Arkansas
* Potter, Nebraska
*Potters, New Jer ...
from
Santo Domingo Pueblo
Kewa Pueblo ( Eastern Keres , Keres: ''Díiwʾi'', Navajo: ''Tó Hájiiloh'') is a federally-recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico, in Sandoval County southwest of Santa Fe. The pueblo is recorded as the Santo ...
(currently known as Kewa Pueblo),
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. The group consisting of two sisters, Felipita Aguilar Garcia, Asuncion Aguilar Cate, and their
sister in law, Mrs. Ramos Aguilar.
Their pottery work together became known as Aguilar pottery, however they are sometimes referred to as the Aguilar Sisters.
History
In the early 1900s, pottery creation at Santo Domingo Pueblo had experienced a significant decline. In 1910,
Julius Seligman, who worked at the
Bernalillo Mercantile Company near the pueblo, noticed the decline in the sales. At his suggestion, the two sisters, Felipita Aguilar Garcia, Asuncion Aguilar Cate, and their
sister in law, Mrs. Ramos Aguilar
attempted to revive the dying art. The three women worked together making pottery and their work became known as “Aguilar pottery.”
The Aguilar sisters made traditional polychrome
olla
An olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes like the irrigation of olive trees. ''Ollas'' have short wide necks and wider bellies, resembling beanpots or ...
s, jars and dough bowls with several different styles of decoration. The painting style for which they are best known was a bold, geometric pattern with black paint on a cream colored slip
or black and red on a cream slip, which almost totally obscured the cream background. This style was unique compared to the typical geometric forms of Santo Domingo pottery where areas were usually left open of unpainted. This style has become known as “negative boldface” or reverse-painted Aguilar pottery. They also made traditional Santo Domingo types of pottery painting including black-on-cream and black-on-red.
The Aguilar sisters' style of pottery ended around 1915, but is today making a comeback as the Aguilar polychrome style has been revived by one of Kewa pueblo’s leading potters,
Robert Tenorio
Robert Tenorio (born December 29, 1950) is a Kewa (Santo Domingo) potter.
Early life
Robert Tenorio was born on December 29, 1950, on the Kewa Pueblo to parents Andrew and Juanita Tenorio, members of the Fire Clan. His paternal grandmother was ...
.
Their pottery work, both as a family and as individual artists, can be found in various museum permanent collections including, the
Brooklyn Museum,
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art,
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 ...
,
and others.
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 ...
References
Further reading
*Batkin, Jonathan - Observations on a Few Great Potters: The Aguilar Family of Santo Domingo. In: Legends of Pueblo Pottery Exhibition Catalog by
Martha Hopkins Struever
Martha Hopkins Struever (1931–2017) was an American Indian art dealer, author, and leading scholar on historic and contemporary Pueblo Indian pottery and Pueblo and Navajo Indian jewelry. In June 2015, a new gallery in the Wheelwright Muse ...
. 1997.
*Hayes, Allan and John Blom - Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni. 1996.
*Toulouse, Betty - Pueblo Pottery of the New Mexico Indians. 1977.
*Schaaf, Gregory - Southern Pueblo Pottery: 2,000 Artist Biographies. 2003.
{{no footnotes, date=March 2011
External links
Aguilar Family pottery at the Holmes Museum of Anthropology
Aguilar Family
Native American potters
Pueblo artists
20th-century American artists
People from Kewa Pueblo, New Mexico