NEHMA | Collection

Rose Naranjo

Native American
(1915–2004)

Bowl
1986

Earthenware
3.125 x 5.625 x 5.625 in.
Gift of the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation
1986.67

Santa Clara Pueblo pottery is widely recognized for its highly polished surfaces, incised designs, and melonlike forms. Naranjo produced a polychrome Bowl in red and black. This smaller piece is polished to a higher shine and shows off the high mica content of Pueblo clay.

Rose Naranjo was born in the Santa Clara Pueblo, a village renowned for its pottery, which was traditionally made by the women and girls of the tribe. After her marriage at age 18 to a Southern Baptist minister named Michael Naranjo, Rose moved to the neighboring Pueblo of Taos, where she lived for the next twenty-seven years, raising her eight children. She passed on her craft to her offspring, and ensured that they all attended college, receiving the education that was not available to her. Several of her children went on to become artists, including Edna Romero, also included in this catalogue. In January 1994 the city of Santa Fe bestowed on Rose the designation of Living Treasure in recognition of her work as a potter and matriarch to a family of accomplished artists.

Danielle Stewart

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions: