Adobe Gallery Blog

The Aguilar sisters—Asunción Aguilar Caté and Felipita Aguilar Garcia—and their sister-in-law, Mrs. Ramon Garcia, were exceptional potters in the late 19^th and early 20^th century period at Santo Domingo Pueblo (now Kewa Pueblo).  They followed tradition in their early works in that designs on their pottery were typical strong black geometrics on creamy white slip.  According to some records, sales of pottery of all potters drastically slowed around 1910 and Mr. Seligman, trader at the post at Santo Domingo, suggested they try developing something different to see if that would spur sales.

The women developed two styles of decorating: one was red and black with white outlining; the other was black with thin white outlining.  It appears that Asunción Caté seemed to prefer the style using black and red, such as this one.  The majority of the surface of her jars are painted with strong heavy black pigment and accented with white and red.  In this case, the red is limited to lines outlining the black windows around the neck.  Below the black mid-body is a traditional wiped-on red band over the base cream slip.

The new design creations by these women were not received with any fanfare at the time and apparently sales did not noticeably increase, however, in the late 20^th century, their pottery was received with much enthusiasm by collectors and their enormous creativity has now been recognized.  They certainly are among the innovators of 20^th century potters along with Maria Martinez, Helen Cordero, Popovi Da, Tony Da and others who were true creators of something new. Read More..