NEHMA | Collection

Rose Gonzales (aka Rose Cata Gonzales)

Native American
(1900–1989)

Bowl
circa 1940

Earthenware
3.16 x 5.375 in. (8.026 x 13.653 cm)
Gift of Gertrude Shurr and Rachael Dunaven Yocom
1990.26

Rose Gonzales’s Bowl is a classic example of the San Ildefonso Pueblo-style black-on-black pottery pioneered by the María and Julian Martinez, but with her own key innovations.

Originally from the San Juan Pueblo, Gonzales married into the San Ildefonso Pueblo, where she first learned to make polished blackware vessels in the 1920s from her mother-in-law, Ramona Sanchez Gonzales. In the 1930s she developed the deep carving method seen on the upper body of Bowl, which she claimed was inspired by a shard of pottery found by her husband while hunting. Gonzales’s carving method became widely integrated into other San Ildefonso Pueblo potters’ artistic practice. Gonzales continued to innovate throughout her lifetime. She frequently collaborated with her son Tse-Pé on the development of duotones.

Matthew Limb

Additional Images Click an image to view a larger version