Pueblo Pottery and the Pueblo Pottery Fund

Pueblo Pottery and the Pueblo Pottery Fund

Public Talk, New Mexico Museum of Art, St. Francis Auditorium
Sunday, April 18, 2018, 1:00–2:00 pm
Admission: $10

Panel Discussion — Speakers: Bruce Bernstein, Panel Discussant, with artists Russell Sanchez and Milford Nahohai. Panelists will discuss the roots of the Pueblo Pottery Fund, founded in 1922 and incorporated three years later as the Indian Arts Fund. The talk will focus on the Fund’s impact on those collecting Native American art and its effect on the lives of the artists and their descendants.

Bruce Bernstein is considered one of the leading authorities on Southwestern Native American art. Bernstein received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 1993. A trained ethnologist, he has worked as a curator and museum director both in Santa Fe and Washington, DC. He currently serves as executive director of Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts in Santa Fe. His numerous publications include Santa Fe Indian Market: A History of Native Arts and the Marketplace (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2012).

Russell Sanchez is a renowned potter from San Ildefonso Pueblo where he conscientiously and insightfully continues the long traditions of innovative pottery from his village. Russell’s work is found in private and public collections throughout the United States. With winning a prize for his first entry into Indian Market at age eight, he clearly indicated his abilities and intentions of becoming one of the most important potters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He learned pottery making from the matriarchs of his village.

Milford Nahohai is from Zuni Pueblo. His mother, Josephine Nahohai, was the 1985-1986 Katrin H. Lamon Fellow in Native American Art and Education, one of SAR’s first artist fellows. Josephine and her olla maiden sisters danced the Zuni ollas back to life during their fellowship at SAR. Studying older pottery solidified Josephine’s memories, strengthening the family’s resolve to return Zuni pottery to its traditional forms.

About the School for Advanced Research (SAR): Founded in 1907, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) is one of North America’s preeminent independent institutes for the study of anthropology, related social sciences and humanities. SAR is home to the Indian Arts Research Center, one of the nation’s most important Southwest Native American art research collections. Through prestigious scholar residency and artist fellowship programs, public programs and SAR Press, SAR advances intellectual inquiry in order to better understand humankind in an increasingly global and interconnected world. Additional information on the work of our resident scholars, seminars, Native American artist fellowships, and other programs is available on the SAR website, https://sarweb.org/; on Facebook,   / ;   and on Twitter, @schadvresearch.