The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of October 7, 2026

A vertically oriented watercolor painting depicts seven figures with medium-light skin tones on tan paper. They wear horizontal black and white stripes and striped headdresses with yellow tufts. Five figures climb a central tan pole, reaching for a colorful bird hanging from a crossbar. At the base, one figure points upward while another stands still. Their eyes and mouths are circled in white. The red signature Julian Martinez is at bottom right.

Koshare Contest

c. 1920s

Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal)

(San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1895–1955)

Julian Martinez

(San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1879–1943)
America, Native America, San Ildefonso pueblo, Early 20th century
watercolor
Page: 57.5 x 36.5 cm (22 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.)
Educational Purchase Fund 1928.314
Location: Not on view

Description

This painting depicts the pole climb that occurs every year during the San Gerónimo Feast Day in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. The striped characters clambering up the pole toward a treasure are koshare (co-shar-eh), the sacred clowns of Pueblo religion. Like European American clowns, koshare provide comic entertainment, but they are much more complex. For instance, they behave in exaggerated ways that turn social norms upside down, thus highlighting and reinforcing the norms.
  • Purchased from The Spanish and Indian Trading Co., Santa Fe, N.M.
  • Crawford, Virginia. “American Indian Painting.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 1 (January 1982): 3–17. Reproduced: Cover; Mentioned: p. 10 www.jstor.org
    Mikolic, Amanda. Celebrating Ceremony: Native American Drawings Now on View. Cleveland Museum of Art Thinker Blog on Medium. November 29, 2019. medium.com
  • Gallery 231 - Native North American Works on Paper Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 2, 2019-August 21, 2020).
    CMA 1982: North American Indian Watercolors, January 12-April 11. 1982, no catalogue
  • {{cite web|title=Koshare Contest|url=false|author=Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal), Julian Martinez|year=c. 1920s|access-date=07 October 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1928.314