It is not too far-fetched to call Maria Martinez the Pablo Picasso of American Indian art.
After all, she easily ranks among the five best-known Indian artists of the 20th century, and she would have a place on any list of that period’s great ceramicists regardless of ethnic background.
And like Picasso, who was born just six years before her, Martinez (1887-1980) respected tradition but was not afraid to go in daring new directions, inventing a now-celebrated style of black-on-black pottery in 1919.
The Denver Art Museum pays tribute to this important artistic trailblazer in a new exhibition running indefinitely in the American Indian galleries on the third floor of the institution’s original building.
Spanning nearly the entirety of Martinez’s career, with more than 30 large- and small-scale selections, this show provides the most comprehensive look at the museum’s collection of her work in at least 20 years.
The museum, which first acquired the work of Martinez and her husband and collaborator, Julian, in 1926, has carefully built what could rank among the five best public collections of the artist’s work in the country.
The keystone is a spectacular pot – 8 3/4 inches tall and 14 inches in diameter – from about 1921. Polly Nordstrand, the museum’s assistant curator of native arts and lead organizer of this exhibition, said it is believed to be among Martinez’s first five black-on-black creations.
Although she and her husband did not produce the first black pottery among the New Mexican pueblos (such work dates back at least 2,000 years), they raised its execution to a new virtuosic level. The couple learned through experimentation how to create the dark finish by keeping oxygen from the pots during firing.
At the same time, they created an innovative way of decorating the shiny, polished pots with black matte designs. This early piece, for example, is decorated with an undulating depiction of a water serpent.
But in an unexpected twist, it is not the image of the creature that was added. Instead, Julian Martinez filled in the background with black matte paint, leaving the remaining polished portions of the exterior to take the form of the serpent.
Martinez, who lived her entire life at San Ildefonso Pueblo northwest of Santa Fe, learned claywork from her Aunt Nicolasa, and was respected for her artistry by the time she was 13.
In 1904 she married Julian. The two spent their honeymoon demonstrating potterymaking at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition and St. Louis World’s Fair.
Julian remained her collaborator until his death in 1943, when she started working with Santana Martinez, a daughter-in-law, and, later, Popovi Da or Tony, one of her four sons.
Early in her career, Martinez sold pots to tourists at the railroad station in Albuquerque and in various Santa Fe markets. But with the help of museum officials such as Edgar Lee Hewett, director of the Museum of New Mexico, her fame grew. Collectors began seeking her out.
Martinez received numerous awards and honors during her life, including an honorary degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1978, she was featured in a major retrospective, “Maria Martinez: Five Generations of Potters,” which included works by the many family members who followed in her footsteps.
Most of the museum’s works by Martinez were collected during the groundbreaking tenure of Frederic Douglas, the institution’s curator of native arts from 1929 through 1956. In 1954, he traveled to San Ildefonso Pueblo to have the artist identify works by her and other potters there.
In honor of the museum’s support of his mother’s work, Tony Martinez gave the institution a stunning black jar in 1954. The 1952 piece, which has no adornment except for its rippled lip, won grand prize at the Gallup (N.M.) Inter-Tribal Ceremonial.
Other notable works include:
Plate, 1935-38. This work – 15 inches diameter – is a fine example of Martinez’s red polished works, in which oxygen was allowed to reach the clay during firing, resulting in a rich, earthy red finish.
Bowl, 1920-21. This piece displays a variation in Julian Martinez’s decorative approach, in which he confined the stylized serpent and cloud imagery to a horizontal band about 3 inches wide.
Bowl, mid-1920s. The rim of this rare cornmeal bowl was cut into what the museum describes as a “stair-step cloud design.”
Plate, 1947. Santana Martinez, who decorated this 15 1/2-inch-wide, black-on-black plate, created yet another variation on the serpent motif, forming it into a square design that sharply offsets the piece’s circular shape.
This Martinez survey proves that art exhibitions do not have to be big, touring blockbusters to generate visitor appeal.
Highlighting a well-recognized artist and showcasing a fascinating, under-recognized facet of the museum’s permanent collection at the same time, this show packs a powerful artistic punch in a small package.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
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“Maria: American Icon”
ART EXHIBITION|More than 30 works by American Indian potter Maria Martinez|Denver Art Museum, W. 13th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock Street|General admission, $10 Colorado residents and $13 non-residents|
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; running indefinitely; 720-865-5000 or denverartmuseum.org.
