Acoma Pueblo Black-on-white Fine-line Jar [SOLD]

Marie Zieu Chino was born at Acoma Pueblo in 1907.  She was certainly one of the Acoma potters who made particularly important contributions to the art of pottery making in the period following World War II. Chino was making pottery as early as the 1920s.

She was known to be a patient and generous teacher.  When teaching she would first allow her students to fill in the lines. When she thought students ready, she would let them paint the whole pot.  Many of her students have gone on to become prize winning potters themselves.  She won her first award at Indian Market when she was only 15 years old.  Some of her pieces were among the prizewinners at the first Southwest Indian Fair (predecessor to Indian Market) in 1922.

Chino is considered one of the significant ceramicists at Acoma and was the matriarch of a very talented family of potters. She is best known for her fine-line black-on-white pottery.  Along with Lucy Lewis and Sarah Garcia she led the revival of the ancient pottery forms of the Ancestral Pueblo potters.   She was one of the women who was inspirational in the movement to revive the use of ancient Mimbres designs on contemporary Acoma pottery. 

This fine little fine-line jar is typical of her outstanding workmanship.  The black lines are consistent in brush stroke and line width.  The intersection of lines is clean and brisk.  The jar is signed M. Z. Chino Acoma, NM

Condition: original condition with some very minor spalling

Provenance: from a collector from Colorado

Recommended Reading: Acoma and Laguna Pottery by Rick Dillingham