Description

Acoma Pueblo is known in part for pottery covered with white slip (clay slurry) and painted with contrasting dark designs. Here a geometric motif alternates with another that may represent an abstract bird, its tail and outspread wings rendered as stepped silhouettes filled with parallel lines. The name of the jar’s creator, perhaps a member of the Histia pottery family, is unknown because most Acoma artists signed their wares only after 1950, a concession to the art market that diverges from admired Pueblo values of modesty and communality.