Pueblo Artists: Portraits - Hardcover

Bush, Alfred L.; Swentzell, Rina; Vigil, Lonnie; Swenzell, Rina; Tucker, Toba Pato

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0890133638 ISBN 13: 9780890133637

Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1998

Synopsis

Toba Tucker's expressive portraits honoring Pueblo artists were made over a two-and-a-half year sojourn in the Southwest. These photographs form a record for history and art at the end of the twentieth century and portray Tucker's interest in the individuals and families who pass their artistic traditions from one generation to the next. The portraits reflect the sense of belonging that she so evidently found among the people who welcomed her into their homes, and they attest to her abiding respect and deep appreciation for the native traditions that continue to carry the Pueblo spirit.

About this title

From the Publisher

In its elegant and respectful portrayal of contemporary pueblo artists and artisans representing nineteen villages, this photography book reveal the continuation of native artistic vision and the emergence of traditional values on the stage of contemporary art.

Portrait photography is considered one of the most collaborative of art forms. Toba Pato Tucker spent two and a half years creating portraits of Pueblo artists and art-making families that reveal the generational links among potters, silversmiths, drum makers, weavers, and painters. Tucker has produced a masterful and honest collection of portraits that document and explore the nature of traditional Pueblo life and its intersection with the non-pueblo modern world.

Alfred L. Bush, curator of the Princeton Collections of Western Americana, traces the long history of portrait-making among the Pueblos. Architectural historical Rina Swentzell, herself from Santa Clara Pueblo, explores the rift between traditional values of the community and the status of the individual artist. Nambe Pueblo artist Lonnie Vigil acknowledges that for Pueblo artists art cannot be separated from family and community life.

In the tradition of early twentieth-century photographers such as A.C. Vroman, Edward Curtis, and Laura Gilpin, Toba Pato Tucker seeks to record continuity and change in the Native American cultures she photographs. Her photographs are included in museum collections at the Heard Museum, the International Center for Photography, Southwest Museum, National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her previous work among Native American cultures resulted, in part, in the book Hodinonshonni: Portraits of the Firekeepers, the Onondaga Nation (Syracuse).

About the Author

Toba Pato Tucker is a documentary portrait photographer who has been photographing Native Americans for two decades. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of the American Indian, Museum of Modern Art, and the Heard Museum, among others, and are exhibited in museums, libraries, and universities throughout the country.

Edition details

• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0890133638
• ISBN 13: 9780890133637
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160