Santa Ana Pueblo Quail Pottery Figurine [SOLD]

I have not yet found reference to Fiorinda Otero as a potter, but it is quite possible she was a member of the classes taught at the pueblo starting in 1972. At that time, there was an attempt to revive the art of pottery production at Santa Ana. Eudora Montoya is the most well recognized potter from Santa Ana Pueblo. It was she who, in 1972, began teaching Santa Ana women the art of pottery making. She had 17 students in her first class. Only 5 or 6 of them continued making pottery. I do not know who the 17 students were.

This bird figurine, possibly a quail, is signed by the potter and dated 1973 leading me to believe that Otero was among the potters attending Eudora Montoya’s first class. The figurine is very well made and certainly not the work of a beginner at the craft. If she were a student of Montoya’s in 1972, then by 1973 she was perhaps an accomplished potter.

The figurine is in very good condition with the normal minor spalling and slip cracks associated with Santa Ana pottery, due primarily to their use of sand as a tempering agent.

Provenance: From the estate of Transcendental artist Florence Pierce of Albuquerque who passed away in 2007 at the age of 89. She was best known for luminescent paintings made of pigmented resins on reflective surfaces. Her interest in abstraction began in the 1930s when she was an associate of the Transcendental Painting Group. The New York Times called her “the doyenne of abstract art in the Southwest” following her art exhibit in New York City in 2006.