Lucy Martin Lewis

Native American, (1895–1992)

Lucy Martin Lewis was born in Sky City, a mesa in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. She began studying pottery at the age of eight, learning from her great aunt Helice Vallo. Her early works were made for the growing tourist market in the Southwest, with Lewis selling ash bowls for nickels and dimes. She is one of four key Acoma Pueblo potters considered the Matriarchs responsible for the revival of their pottery. Lewis was a highly innovative and decorated potter. Her work began receiving national recognition in 1950, after which she began signing her work (a controversial choice among the Pueblo community). Lewis’s biography, Lucy M. Lewis: American Indian Potter, by Susan Peterson, remains a key historical text in the study of Acoma ceramics.