Dominguita Pino Martinez, San Ildefonso Potter

San Ildefonso Pueblo artist Dominguita Pino Martinez is known for having made magnificent large black-on-red pottery.  She collaborated with several others to paint her pottery.  Some of her collaborators were her son, Crescencio Martinez, her daughter Tonita Roybal, her husband Santiago Martinez and son-in-law Alfredo Montoya.

Jonathan Batkin, former director of the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, authored an article in American Indian Art Magazine, in 1991, in which he discussed three great potters of San Ildefonso Pueblo, and Dominguita Pino was one of the three he chose. He stated that Dominguita and her husband, Santiago, along with their children, “made some of the most beautiful pottery of the early twentieth century.  Like her contemporaries, Ba Tse and Martina Vigil, Dominguita made some extremely large vessels.”  Dominguita’s children were Cescencio Martinez, Alfonsita Roybal, and Tonita Roybal.  One of her grandsons was Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh). 

Dominguita Pino Martinez (1860-1948) is generally recorded as Dominguita Pino, without her married name of Martinez.  We have chosen to use her full married name to distinguish her from a Zia Pueblo potter by the name of Dominguita Pino.

TAGS: San Ildefonso Pueblo, Historic Pottery, Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh), Santiago Martinez, Jonathan Batkin, American Indian Art Magazine, Martina Vigil, Dominguita Pino (of Zia Pueblo)