Julián Martínez, also known as Pocano (1879–1943), was a

San Ildefonso Pueblo San Ildefonso Pueblo (Tewa language, Tewa: Pʼohwhogeh Ówîngeh ’òhxʷógè ʔówîŋgè"where the water cuts through" ), also known as the Turquoise Clan, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, Santa Fe Coun ...

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US *Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska *Potters, New Jerse ...

,"Julian Martinez."
''Smithsonian American Art Museum''. Retrieved 7 April 2012. painter, and the patriarch of a family of Native American ceramic artists in the United States.

Background

Martínez was born in 1879 in

, New Mexico. His name, Pocano, means "Coming of the Spirits" in

Tewa The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo people, Pueblo Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of San ...

. He worked as a farmer, general laborer, and janitor, in addition to being an artist. He was elected governor of San Ildefonso.Lester 344 Martínez married matriarch potter

Maria Martinez Maria Poveka Montoya Martinez ( – July 20, 1980) was a Pueblo peoples, Pueblo artist who created internationally known Native American pottery, pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian Martinez, Julian, and other fam ...

, and together they had a son Popovi Da, who was also a potter.Lester 343 Maria is considered the preeminent creator of San Ildefonso blackware pottery; however Julian contributed to her accomplishments. Their son Popovi Da continued innovating Pueblo ceramic arts; his work has been widely exhibited and collected. Martinez died on March 6, 1943, in San Ildefonso Pueblo.

Work

The Martinez family was instrumental in reviving the San Ildefonso and creating the San Ildefonso black-on-black, matte-on-shiny pottery technique. The Martínez family is credited for inventing a technique that would allow for areas of the pottery to have a matte finish and other areas to be a glossy jet black. Martínez, with help from anthropologist, Edgar Lee Hewett researched historical designs and reproduced them on the pottery, later modifying classical Pueblo designs to create his own. Martínez was also an easel painter. He painted scenes of

Pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...

rituals as well as abstract designs with colored pencil and watercolor, and featured Western figurative types against blank backgrounds. He painted murals at the former Santa Fe Indian School in

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , literal translation, lit. "Holy Faith") is the capital city, capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Santa Fe County. With over 89,000 residents, Santa Fe is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fourt ...

and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Martínez was part of an art movement called the

San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group The San Ildefonso school, also known as San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group, was an art movement from 1900 to 1935 featuring Native Americans in the United States, Native American artists primarily from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, San Ildefo ...

, which included such noted artists as Alfonso Roybal, Tonita Peña, Abel Sanchez (Oqwa Pi), Crecencio Martinez, and Encarnación Peña.

Public collections

The artwork of Maria and Julian Martinez can be found in the following public collections. *

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

, New York * Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Arizona * Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas * Arizona State Museum, Tucson *

Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ...

, Ohio * Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts, Ohio * Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio *

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

, Hanover, New Hampshire *

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

, Colorado * Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Norman, Oklahoma *

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gr ...

, Tulsa, Oklahoma * Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska * Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas *

Millicent Rogers Museum The Millicent Rogers Museum is an art museum in Taos, New Mexico, founded in 1956 by the family of Millicent Rogers. Initially the artworks were from the multi-cultural collections of Millicent Rogers and her mother, Mary B. Rogers, who donated ...

, Taos, New Mexico * Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey * Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota * Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe *

Museum of Northern Arizona The Museum of Northern Arizona is a museum in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, established as a repository for Indigenous material and natural history specimens from the Colorado Plateau. The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist Dr. Harol ...

, Katherine Harvey Collection, Flagstaff *

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

George Gustav Heye Center The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...

, New York *

, Washington, D.C. * Newark Museum, Newark, NJ * Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts, Owensboro, Kentucky *

Philbrook Museum of Art Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...

, Tulsa, Oklahoma * Riverside Museum, New York * School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico *

Smithsonian Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, Washington, D.C. * Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles *

University of Pennsylvania Museum A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, Philadelphia * Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, New Mexico

References

Notes

*Lester, Patrick D. ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters.'' Tulsa, OK: SIR Publications, 1995. . * Crawford, Virginia. "American Indian Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 1 (1982): 3–17.

External links