Marie G. Romero Jemez Pueblo Storyteller with Four Children, Signed

Marie Gachupin Romero (Native American, Jemez Pueblo, 1927–2007). Storyteller with four children, pottery sculpture, ca. 1964–2007 CE. Signed on underside of base. A hand-built storyteller figure of a seated mother with four children climbing over her, her round mouth open mid-tale. Two children cling to her shoulders, a swaddled infant in a cradleboard lies in her arms, and a fourth sits on her lap with one arm raised and eyes closed, absorbed in the story. The buff clay is painted in matte black and terracotta red. The mother wears a black manta fastened over one shoulder, a red sash, and a long necklace of red dots, perhaps meant as coral, with a pendant. Black bobbed hair frames each face, and the features are drawn with a few fine strokes. The mother’s wide, almond-shaped eyes are characteristic of Romero’s figures. The storyteller figure is a modern Pueblo invention with an exact birth year. In 1964 Helen Cordero of Cochiti Pueblo modeled a seated elder covered in listening children, a portrait of her grandfather Santiago Quintana telling stories to his grandchildren. The form built on the older Cochiti "singing mother" figurines but turned them into something new: one storyteller, many listeners, the mouth always open. It spread quickly across the Rio Grande pueblos. Within a decade, potters at Jemez, Cochiti, Tesuque, and elsewhere were making their own versions, and the number of children on a figure became a source of pride and good-natured rivalry. At Jemez Pueblo the storyteller became part of a wider pottery revival. The village's old pottery tradition had largely lapsed in the early twentieth century. From the 1960s onward, Jemez families took up clay again, favoring figurative work and polychrome painting. Marie Gachupin Romero was one of the leading figures of that revival and the matriarch of a family of potters. Her daughters, among them Maxine Toya and Laura Gachupin, built careers of their own. Her storytellers are known for their gentle, stylized faces, matte black and red palette, and crowded, affectionate groups of children. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 206345

Estimation:€223.35

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