'San Ildefonso Pueblo National Treasures' spans 120 years of historic, modern pueblo art

Thousands of people come to SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market every August for the latest in contemporary Indigenous art. But Adobe Gallery wants to take visitors back in time to see the roots of contemporary Pueblo art.

“San Ildefonso Pueblo National Treasures, 1850s–1970s” spans 120 years of painting and pottery from San Ildefonso Pueblo — also known as the Turquoise Clan — a pueblo in Santa Fe County that has produced many notable artists over the decades.

“Our idea is to present a historic overview of San Ildefonso Pueblo art during a contemporary Native American art show,” Todd Scalise, Adobe’s gallery administrator, said.

Adobe’s exhibition extends through the late-modern period of the 1970s — just shy of what’s considered contemporary for Pueblo art, according to Scalise.

“We’re showing a snapshot of the historic, but we’re also showing modern pottery and paintings that came from the historic,” Scalise said. “To have all these pieces together in this type of dialogue is a pretty rare thing.”

San Ildefonso gained a reputation for innovation, which Scalise said resulted, partly, from its location at a cultural crossroads.

“San Ildefonso Pueblo is an interesting pueblo, because early on it had a lot of through-traffic culturally, and it’s relatively close to Santa Clara Pueblo,” Scalise said. “San Ildefonso Pueblo, probably because of the cross-cultural mixture and movement, became fairly innovative.”

In terms of pottery, one of the pueblo’s main innovations was the black-on-black style.

“This is a black form that’s been burnished and painted black. Maria Martinez (1887–1980) and Julian Martinez (1879–1943) are known for that innovation,” Scalise said. “And it’s become synonymous with the Southwest.”

The husband and wife team of Julian and Maria Martinez developed their black-on-black technique in the early 20th century, which influenced both Indigenous and Euro-American art.

“Art Deco borrowed this (style) and consumed it,” Scalise said.

Generations later, the grandson of Maria Martinez, Tony Da, integrated new techniques, including sgraffito carving and inlay work.

“Pueblo art is passed down generationally,” Scalise said. “Unlike Western art, where people don’t necessarily come from artistic families but become artists by going to art school, something that often gets overlooked in terms of Pueblo art is the importance of the art being passed down generationally.”

“So, it’s a slow, evolving, moving thing, which almost resembles a living thing,” Scalise continued. “Different components evolve, then go away, then get passed down, and there’s new iterations, which is where the innovation comes from.”

Unlike pottery, painting was not part of traditional Pueblo culture.

“The first generation of Pueblo painters start around 1900, because painting was not an Indigenous art form to any Native Americans. They didn’t paint like Westerners did, like on a substrate with three-dimensional space,” Scalise said. “So naturally, it starts off as being a flat style, which was taught at the Santa Fe Indian School.”

Scalise compares these early paintings to medieval European art.

“What’s interesting about Pueblo painting is that in the space of about 100 years, these painters went from this (flat style) to contemporary art, whereas in the Western world, it took several centuries,” Scalise said. “So, they spanned, pictorially, several centuries in one century.”

Adobe Gallery’s exhibition includes work by over 25 San Ildefonso artists, including several important intergenerational lineages. And Scalise said he and the other gallery staff are happy to lead visitors through that history.

“This is a truly American art, which is important to note,” Scalise said. “This is what has been going on here for thousands of years.”

He also noted that the growing market for contemporary Indigenous art is attracting new collectors, some of whom are starting to look back to the historic and modern material.

“Our job is to find that next generation of collectors,” Scalise said.

'San Ildefonso Pueblo National Treasures' spans 120 years of historic, modern pueblo art

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers music, visual arts, books and more. You can reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com.