190722-13 Santa Clara Blackware Pottery Bowl, Lorencita Naranjo Tafoya (1899-1987)
Ca 1960
3 3/4" x 8 3/4"d
Nicely burnished and carved, with a heavy nature and a graceful form.
Condition: Has some minor surface imperfections and slight wear marks, but overall is in very fine condition. The interior is fully burnished.
Lorencita Naranjo was born on the Santa Clara pueblo on May 25, 1899, the daughter of Valentine Naranjo (1875-by 1930) and Nestora Gutierrez (1879-1980). She was presumably taught the craft of pottery from her mother, an accomplished potter (best known as Nestora Gutierrez Silva, after her second husband Adam Silva, whom she married after Lorencita's father's death.) Lorencita married first Epifiano Tafoya (1880-1924) and second, after his death, his brother Margarito Tafoya (1888-1980); they were the sons of Manuel Tafoya and Maria Deluvina Naranjo, and related to the great Margaret Tafoya (1901-2001), acknowledged as the matriarch and best of the Santa Clara potters. It was in this great extended family of women artists that Lorencita flourished, enjoying a near fifty-year career spanning from the 1920's through the 1970's. She was a favorite subject of pueblo photographer T. Harmon Parkhurst, whose portraits capture a shy beauty (in sharp contrast with Parkhurst's bold and iconic images of her mother, Nestora, another favorite subject.) Lorencita died on December 16, 1987. Her works can be found in the Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures, Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Lowell D. Holmes Museum of Anthropology at Wichita State University (Source: Desert West Auctions).