Nampeyo

Template:Short description Template:Infobox artist

Nampeyo (1859<ref name="Other sources cite 1860 or 1868">Other sources cite 1860 or 1868.</ref> – 1942)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was a Hopi-Tewa potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.<ref>Dillingham, Rick. Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. Template:ISBN. pp. 14–15</ref><ref>Various sources give 1856 or 1860 as Nampeyo's birthdate.</ref> Her Tewa name was also spelled Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite". Her name is also cited as "Nung-beh-yong," Tewa for Sand Snake.<ref name=":0" />

She used ancient techniques for making and firing pottery and used designs from "Old Hopi" pottery and shards found at 15th-century Sikyátki ruins on First Mesa.<ref name="Timeline" /> Her artwork is in collections in the United States and Europe, including many museums like the National Museum of American Art, Museum of Northern Arizona, Spurlock Museum, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.

A world record for Southwest American Indian pottery was declared at Bonhams Auction House in San Francisco on December 6, 2010, when one of Nampeyo's art works, a decorated ceramic pot, sold for $350,000.<ref name="sltrib_2010_Loomis_SF">Template:Cite news</ref>

Early lifeEdit

File:Nampeyo and her brother Tom Polacca, photograph taken in 1875 by William Henry Jackson.jpg

Nampeyo and her brother Tom Polacca on the rooftop of the Corn clan dwelling at the Hano village, photograph taken in 1875 by William Henry Jackson (Colorado Historical Society)<ref>Barbara Kramer. Nampeyo and Her Pottery. University of Arizona Press; 2003. Template:ISBN. p. 20.</ref>

Nampeyo was born on First Mesa in the village of Hano, also known as Tewa Village which is primarily made up of descendants of the Tewa people from Northern New Mexico who fled west to Hopi lands about 1702 for protection from the Spanish after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Her mother, White Corn was Tewa; her father Quootsva, from nearby Walpi, was a member of the Snake clan of the Hopi Nation. According to tradition, Nampeyo was born into her mother's Tewa Corn clan.<ref name="Dittemore" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name="Kramer early life">Barbara Kramer. Nampeyo and Her Pottery. University of Arizona Press; 2003. Template:ISBN. pp. xi, 7, 194.</ref> Tradition also gave her paternal grandmother the role of naming her. Her grandmother, a member of the Snake clan, named the baby Tcu-mana, or snake-girl in the Hopi language. Her mother's family, who she lived with, spoke Tewa, and so called her Nampeyo, which has the same meaning.<ref name=":2">Hirschfelder, Arlene. “Nampeyo.” Artists and Craftspeople, Facts On File, 1994. American Indian History.</ref> She had three older brothers, Tom Polacca, Kano, and Patuntupi, also known as Squash; Her brothers were born from about 1849 to 1858.<ref name=":0" /> Nampeyo could not read or write and never went to school.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

William Henry Jackson first photographed her in 1875; she was reputedly one of the most photographed ceramic artists in the Southwest during the 1870s.<ref name=Dittemore />

Shortly after this photograph, Nampeyo married Kwivoya, but their marriage was unsuccessful and they never cohabitated.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Sonneborn, Liz. “Nampeyo.” American Indian Women, Third Edition, 2016. American Indian History.</ref> About 1878<ref name=Timeline /> or 1881,<ref name=McChesney>Lea S. McChesney. "Producing 'Generations in Clay Template:' ". Expedition Magazine. Penn Museum. March 1994. Retrieved April 7. 2014.</ref> Nampeyo married her second husband, Lesou (or Lesso), a member of the Cedarwood clan at Walpi. Their first daughter, Annie, was born in 1884; William Lesso, was born about 1893; Nellie was born in 1896; Wesley in 1899; and Fannie was born in 1900.<ref name=Timeline>A Nampeyo Timeline Template:Webarchive, Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona. Retrieved April 7, 2014.</ref>

ArtworkEdit

File:Nampeyo firing pottery, 1901, Smithsonian Institution.jpg

Nampeyo firing pottery, 1901

Hopi people make ceramics painted with beautiful designs, and Nampeyo was eventually considered one of the finest Hopi potters. Nampeyo may have learned Hopi pottery making through the efforts of her father's mother, though her biographer Barbara Kramer believes this theory implausible.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

In the 1870s, Nampeyo made a steady income by selling her work at a local trading post operated by Thomas Keam.<ref name=":3">Wade Edwin L., Lea S. McChesney and Thomas Keam. "Historic Hopi Ceramics: The Thomas V. Keam Collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology".</ref> By 1881 she was already known for her works of "old Hopi" pottery of Walpi.<ref name="McChesney" />

File:Nampeyo pot Crocker Art Museum.jpg

A seed jar made by Nampeyo approximately 1905

Nampeyo became increasingly interested in ancient pottery form and design, recognizing them as superior to Hopi pottery produced at the time. Lesou, her husband, was reputedly employed by the archaeologist J. Walter Fewkes at the excavation of the ancient ruins of the Hopi village Sikyátki on the First Mesa in the 1890s. Lesou helped Nampeyo find potsherds with ancient designs which they copied onto paper and were later integrated into Nampeyo's pottery.<ref name="Dittemore" /><ref name=":0" /> However, she began making copies of protohistoric pottery from the 15th through 17th centuries from ancient village sites,<ref name="Timeline" /> such as Sikyátki, which was explored before Fewkes and Thomas Varker Keam.<ref name="Dittemore" /><ref name="McChesney" /> Nampeyo developed her own style based on the traditional designs, known as Hopi Revival pottery<ref>Barbara Kramer. Nampeyo and Her Pottery. University of Arizona Press; 2003. Template:ISBN. pp. 143, 160.</ref> from old Hopi designs and Sikyátki pottery.<ref name="McChesney" /> This is why researchers refer to her style as Sikyatki Revival after the proto-historic site.<ref>Dittemore D. The Nampeyo legacy. Southwest Art [serial online]. August 2001;31(3):175–183. Available from: OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson), Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 5, 2015.</ref>

File:Nampeyo with one of her Sikyatki-inspired vessels, ca. 1908–1910. Hopi, Arizona. Photo by Charles M. Wood. P07128.jpg

Nampeyo with one of her Sikyátki Revival vessels, Template:Abbr 1908–1910. Hopi, Arizona. Photo by Charles M. Wood. P07128

Keam hired First Mesa potters to make reproductions of the works. Nampeyo was particularly skilled. Her pottery became a success and was collected throughout the United States and in Europe.<ref name="McChesney" />

File:Ancestral Hopi Sikyatki moth jar.jpg

Sikyatki moth-pattern jar, excavated circa 1895. This became one of her favorite patterns.

When I first began to paint, I used to go to the ancient village and pick up pieces of pottery and copy the designs. That is how I learned to paint. But now, I just close my eyes and see designs and I paint them.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries
}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Kate Cory, an artist and photographer who lived among the Hopi from 1905 to 1912 at Oraibi and Walpi,<ref name=Opitz>Opitz, Glenn B., Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Books, Poughkeepsie, NY, 1988</ref> wrote that Nampeyo used sheep bones in the fire, which are believed to have made the fire hot or made the pottery whiter, and smoothed the fired pots with a plant with a red blossom. Both techniques are ancient Tewa pottery practices.<ref>Barbara Kramer. Nampeyo and Her Pottery. University of Arizona Press; 2003. Template:ISBN. pp. 73–74.</ref> Nampeyo used up to five different clays in one creation when the usual was two.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Nampeyo and her husband traveled to Chicago in 1898 to exhibit her pottery.<ref name="Koshare bio">Nampeyo. Template:Webarchive Koshare Indian Museum. Retrieved April 7, 2014.</ref> Between 1905 and 1907, she produced and sold pottery out of a pueblo-like structure called Hopi House, a tourist attraction (combination of museum, curio shop, theatre, and living space for Native American dancers and artists) at the Grand Canyon lodge, operated by the Fred Harvey Company.<ref name=Timeline /><ref name=McChesney /> She exhibited in 1910 at the Chicago United States Land and Irrigation Exposition.<ref name=Timeline /><ref name=Namingha />

One of her famous patterns, the migration pattern, represented the migration of the Hopi people, with feather and bird-claw motifs. An example is a 1930s vase in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.<ref name=Namingha /> Her work is distinguished by the shapes of the pottery and the designs. She made wide, low, rounded, shaped pottery and, in later years, tall jars.<ref name=Dittemore /> Many of her works are identifiable by her "recognizable designs" and "her artistic idiosyncrasies."<ref name=":0" />

Nampeyo's photograph was often used on travel brochures for the American southwest.<ref name="Kramer p. 70" />

Nampeyo began to lose her sight due to trachoma about the turn of the 20th century.<ref name="Kramer p. 70">Barbara Kramer. Nampeyo and Her Pottery. University of Arizona Press; 2003. Template:ISBN. p. 70.</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> From 1925 until her death she made pottery by touch and they were then painted by her husband, daughters or other family members.<ref name="Koshare bio" /><ref>Appendix D: Ranking 'Nampeyo Pots'. Template:Webarchive Native American Art Collection. http://www.firstpeoplepots.com Retrieved April 9, 2013.</ref> Because the painters were different, the style changed to be busier and more geometric.<ref name=":2" />

Death and legacyEdit

File:Nampeyo and Family, 1901, Adam Clark Vroman.jpg

Nampeyo in 1901 (on the right) with her eldest daughter, Annie Healing (on the left) holding her granddaughter, Rachel; and mother White Corn (in the middle).

Nampeyo died in 1942 at the home of her son Wesley and her daughter-in-law, Cecilia.<ref name=Timeline />

She was a symbol of the Hopi people and was a leader in the revival of ancient pottery.<ref name="Koshare bio" /> She inspired dozens of family members over several generations to make pottery, including daughters Fannie Nampeyo and Annie Healing.<ref name=Dittemore>Diane Dittemore. "The Nampeyo Legacy: A Family of Hopi-Tewa Potters". Southwest Art. Retrieved April 9, 2014.</ref><ref name=":1" /> A 2014 exhibit at the Museum of Northern Arizona presents the works of four generations of artists descended from Nampeyo.<ref name=Bruner />

In 2010, one of Nampeyo's artworks, a pot with a bulbous form with Hopi Kachina figures with "stylized faces" wearing "flamboyant black and burnt-umber headdresses" painted on "four sides of the pot"—sold for $350,000. Previous owners included Carter Harrison IV (who served as mayor of Chicago from 1897 to 1907 and 1911–1915), and the Cliff Dwellers Club art club (who were gifted the work by Harrison in the 1930s).<ref name="sltrib_2010_Loomis_SF" />