Hopi-Tewa Seed Jar with Migration Pattern by Priscilla Nampeyo [SOLD]

This Hopi-Tewa pottery jar is a masterpiece of construction and artistic achievement, illustrating Priscilla Nampeyo's artistic genius as a potter and painter. The seed jar has a most graceful vessel shape, almost globular. It rests on a half-dollar size flat bottom on which the artist signed her name. From there, it expands outward and upward in globular shape to the mid-body where it reverses direction and rolls inward to a 3-inch opening. Priscilla Nampeyo placed eight connected paddle-shaped designs filled with parallel fine lines with claw-like elements at each end. The area surrounding the ends was filled in with orange slip.

Defining the design, as we have done, may sound simple but the execution of it was far from simple. The curves at upper and lower ends and the parallel fine lines are extraordinarily difficult to execute with a yucca-tip brush. Only an experienced potter could do so with such precision with handmade pigments and brushes made from native plants.

Priscilla Namingha Nampeyo (1924-2008) was a third-generation descendant of Nampeyo of Hano. Her mother was Rachel Namingha Nampeyo, and her grandmother was Annie Healing Nampeyo.  Nampeyo began teaching Priscilla when she was only seven years old.

I remember how gracious Priscilla Nampeyo was when I would visit her on my many trips to Hopi in the 1970s and 80s.  She never seemed to be bothered about being interrupted by visitors and never seemed in a hurry for me to leave so she could get back to work.  What a wonderful lady she was and what an expert potter and artist. Our lives are richer because of the beautiful works she left for us.  - Alexander E. Anthony, Jr.

Condition: original condition

Provenance: this Hopi-Tewa Seed Jar with Migration Pattern by Priscilla Nampeyo is from the collection of a family from Georgia

Recommended Reading: Hopi-Tewa Pottery: 500 Artist Biographies by Gregory Schaaf.

Relative Links: Hopi Pueblo, Nampeyo of Hano, Rachel Namingha Nampeyo, Annie Healing Nampeyo, Priscilla Namingha Nampeyo, Hopi Pueblo Potter