Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Juan Tafoya
Juan Tafoya San Ildefonso Native American Pottery

1983

Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Impeccable Provenance! See attached pictures of Juan Tafoya holding this particular piece, as well as his business card and his original letter all included. Juan Tafoya (1949-2006) was a well-known San Ildefonso Pueblo potter who has been active since 1970. He passed away prematurely at age 57 years. Early on in his career, Juan began experimenting with firing techniques to achieve a brown/black combination, and experimented with using turquoise as a decorative element. He specialized in sgraffito designs where he would chip away at the polished slip to form a textured background. According to a letter previously provided by Juan Tafoya, he was a life-long resident of San Ildefonso Pueblo and was involved in pottery making since he was first able to gather the materials that go into making pottery. He was taught the art of pottery making by his mother, Donicia Tafoya.
  • Creator:
    Juan Tafoya (1949 - 2006)
  • Creation Year:
    1983
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 5.5 in (13.97 cm)Width: 7 in (17.78 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Missouri, MO
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU74733459693

More From This Seller

View All
Frog and Swiss on Rye
By David Gilhooly
Located in Missouri, MO
Frog and Swiss on Rye, 1981 By David Gilhooly (1943-2013) 4.75" x 3.5" x 4.5" Whimsical and irreverent, Mr. Gilhooly was internationally acclaimed for his imaginative ceramic works...
Category

20th Century American Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic

Emiliano Zapata / Frog Revolutionary
By David Gilhooly
Located in Missouri, MO
Emiliano Zapata / Frog Revolutionary, 1981 By David Gilhooly (1943-2013) 20" x 11.5" Whimsical and irreverent, Mr. Gilhooly was internationally accla...
Category

20th Century American Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic

Burrito Frog
By David Gilhooly
Located in Missouri, MO
Burrito Frog, 1981 By David Gilhooly (1943-2013) 8" x 4" x 2" Signed Underneath Whimsical and irreverent, Mr. Gilhooly was internationally acclaimed for his imaginative ceramic work...
Category

20th Century American Modern Still-life Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic

Pickaxe (Spitzhacke) Superimposed on a Drawing of the Site by E.L. Grimm
By Claes Oldenburg
Located in Missouri, MO
Pickaxe (Spitzhacke) Superimposed on a Drawing of the Site by E.L. Grimm, 1982 By Claes Oldenburg (Swedish, American, 1929-2022) Unframed: 26" x 20" Framed: 28.75" x 22.75" Signed and Dated Lower Right Whimsical sculpture of pop culture objects, many of them large and out-of-doors, is the signature work of Swedish-born Claes Oldenburg who became one of America's leading Pop Artists. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden. His father was a diplomat, and during Claes' childhood moved his family from Stockholm to a variety of locations including Chicago where the father was general consul of Sweden and where Oldenburg spent most of his childhood. He attended the Latin School of Chicago, and then Yale University where he studied literature and art history, graduating in 1950, the same year Claes became an American citizen. Returning to Chicago, he enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1954 and also worked as a reporter at the City News Bureau. He opened his own studio, and in 1953, some of his satirical drawings were included in his first group show at the Club St. Elmo, Chicago. He also painted at the Oxbow School of Painting in Michigan. In 1956, he moved to New York where he drew and painted while working as a clerk in the art libraries of Cooper-Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration. Selling his first artworks during this time, he earned 25 dollars for five pieces. Oldenburg became friends with numerous artists including Jim Dine, Red Grooms and Allan Kaprow, who with his "Happenings" was especially influential on Oldenburg's interest in environmental art. Another growing interest was soft sculpture, and in 1957, he created a piece later titled Sausage, a free-hanging woman's stocking stuffed with newspaper. In 1959, he had his first one-man show, held at the Judson Gallery at Washington Square. He exhibited wood and newspaper sculpture and painted papier-mache objects. Some viewers of the exhibit commented how refreshing Oldenburg's pieces were in contrast to the Abstract Expressionism, a style which much dominated the art world. During this time, he was influenced by the whimsical work of French artist, Bernard Buffet, and he experimented with materials and images of the junk-filled streets of New York. In 1960, Oldenburg created his first Pop-Art Environments and Happenings in a mock store full of plaster objects. He also did Performances with a cast of colleagues including artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselman, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard Artschwager, dealer Annina Nosei, critic Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer. His first wife (1960-1970) Pat Muschinski, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his Happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to house "The Store," a month-long installation he had first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. This installation was stocked with sculptures roughly in the form of consumer goods. Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles in 1963 "because it was the most opposite thing to New York I could think of". That same year, he conceived AUT OBO DYS, performed in the parking lot of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in December 1963. In 1965 he turned his attention to drawings and projects for imaginary outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form of small collages such as a crayon image of a fat, fuzzy teddy bear looming over the grassy fields of New York's Central Park (1965) and Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London (1966). Oldenburg realized his first outdoor public monument in 1967; Placid Civic Monument took the form of a Conceptual performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with a crew of gravediggers digging a 6-by-3-foot rectangular hole in the ground. Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited public ridicule before being embraced as whimsical, insightful, and fun additions to public outdoor art. From the early 1970s Oldenburg concentrated almost exclusively on public commissions. Between 1969 and 1977 Oldenburg had been in a relationship with Hannah Wilke, feminist artist, but in 1977 he married Coosje van Bruggen, a Dutch-American writer and art historian who became collaborator with him on his artwork. He had met her in 1970, when she curated an exhibition for him at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Their first collaboration came when Oldenburg was commissioned to rework Trowel I, a 1971 sculpture of an oversize garden tool, for the grounds of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. Oldenburg has officially signed all the work he has done since 1981 with both his own name and van Bruggen's. In 1988, the two created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota that remains a staple of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as well as a classic image of the city. Typewriter Eraser...
Category

20th Century American Modern Mixed Media

Materials

Etching, Aquatint, Photogravure

Zephyr Green Macchia with Blue Lip Wrap
By Dale Chihuly
Located in Missouri, MO
Zephyr Green Macchia with Blue Lip Wrap, 1996 Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941) 8 x 10 x 10 inches Signed and Dated on Bottom Born in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly became the most...
Category

1990s American Modern Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Glass, Blown Glass

Jazz Players
Located in Missouri, MO
Jazz Players by Bill Hinz (1920-2009) Signature in Textile Bottom Left Unframed: 41.5" x 64" Framed: 42.5" x 64.75" Unique Piece made entirely out of a s...
Category

20th Century American Modern More Art

Materials

Textile

You May Also Like

John Glick Plum Tree Pottery , Stoneware Mug, Deep Earth Tones, Glazed
Located in Detroit, MI
“Untitled” ceramic, is an example of the kind of work by which John Glick became so famous. He was seduced by the effects of the reduction kiln, which decreased the levels of oxygen during firing, inducing the flame to pull oxygen out of the clay and glazes changing the colors of the glazes depending on their iron and copper content. In this way he achieved the rich gradients of ochre and umber and variations in stippling and opacity. This piece is signed on the bottom and can be found on page 129, plate #236 in “John Glick: A Legacy in Clay.” John was an American Abstract Expressionist ceramicist born in Detroit, MI. Though open to artistic experimentation, Glick was most influenced by the styles and aesthetics of Asian pottery—an inspiration that shows in his use of decorative patterns and glaze choices. He has said that he is attracted to simplicity, as well as complexity: my work continually reflects my re-examination that these two poles can coexist… or not, in a given series. Glick also took influences from master potters of Japan, notably Shoji Hamada and Kanjrio Kawai, blending their gestural embellishments of simple forms with attitudes of Abstract Expressionism. He was particularly drown to the work of Helen Frankenthaler whose soak-stain style resonated with Glick’s multi-layered glaze surfaces, which juxtaposed veils of atmospheric color with gestural marks and pattern. He spent countless hours developing and making his own tools in order to achieve previously unseen results in his work with clay and glaze. Glick’s “Plum Tree Pottery...
Category

Late 20th Century American Modern More Art

Materials

Stoneware, Glaze

John Glick Plum Street Pottery Reduction Fired Shino Glaze Cup Published in Book
Located in Detroit, MI
“Untitled” ceramic, is an example of the kind of work by which John Glick became so famous. He was seduced by the effects of the reduction kiln, which decreased the levels of oxygen during firing, inducing the flame to pull oxygen out of the clay and glazes changing the colors of the glazes depending on their iron and copper content. In this way he achieved the rich gradients of ochre and umber and variations in stippling and opacity. This piece is signed on the bottom and can be found on page 92, plate #125 in “John Glick: A Legacy in Clay.” John was an American Abstract Expressionist ceramicist born in Detroit, MI. Though open to artistic experimentation, Glick was most influenced by the styles and aesthetics of Asian pottery—an inspiration that shows in his use of decorative patterns and glaze choices. He has said that he is attracted to simplicity, as well as complexity: my work continually reflects my re-examination that these two poles can coexist… or not, in a given series. Glick also took influences from master potters of Japan, notably Shoji Hamada and Kanjrio Kawai, blending their gestural embellishments of simple forms with attitudes of Abstract Expressionism. He was particularly drown to the work of Helen Frankenthaler whose soak-stain style resonated with Glick’s multi-layered glaze surfaces, which juxtaposed veils of atmospheric color with gestural marks and pattern. He spent countless hours developing and making his own tools in order to achieve previously unseen results in his work with clay and glaze. Glick’s “Plum Tree Pottery...
Category

1990s American Modern More Art

Materials

Stoneware, Glaze

"Untitled" Ceramic Vase with Etched Figures, Green Glaze, Signed on Bottom
Located in Detroit, MI
SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Douglas’s etched ceramic vase in a rich earthy green glaze expresses the Mid-Century Modern style of simplicity of lines, forms and color. Despite its formal shap...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern More Art

Materials

Ceramic, Glaze

Aldo Londi Vase Abstract "Glass Fused Ceramic Vase"
Located in Detroit, MI
"Glass Fused Ceramic Vase" is vintage Mid-Century Modern. This handsome vase has an elongated neck with a white glass-fused inlay portion on the front body...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern More Art

Materials

Ceramic, Glass

Twelve Pattern Plate
By Rachel Hubbard Kline
Located in Kansas City, MO
Rachel Hubbard Kline Twelve Pattern Plate Medium: Stoneware, underglaze, glaze Year: 2021 Size: 1 1/2" x 8" x 8" Description: Wheel-thrown plate with hand-painted textile pattern -...
Category

2010s American Modern More Art

Materials

Stoneware, Glaze, Underglaze

Brown 10 Petal Plate
By Rachel Hubbard Kline
Located in Kansas City, MO
Rachel Hubbard Kline Brown 10 Petal Plate Medium: Stoneware, underglaze, glaze Year: 2021 Size: 1 1/4" x 7 3/4" x 7 3/4" Description: Wheel-thrown plate wi...
Category

2010s American Modern More Art

Materials

Stoneware, Glaze, Underglaze