Maria Martinez-Poveka

1887 San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico - 1980 San Ildefonso, New Mexico

BiographyMaria Martinez was born around 1887 at San Ildefonso Pueblo. She learned how to make pottery by watching her aunt, Nicolasa Montoya, and grandmother and by the age of thirteen was already known within the tribe for her skills. After her marriage to Julian Martinez, a watercolor artist, they worked together to create pottery, with Maria Martinez sculpting and polishing the pots and Julian Martinez painting and firing them. They originally started making traditional polychrome wares.

Around 1908, Dr. Edgar Lee Hewitt, an archaeologist and director of the Museum of New Mexico, brought examples of broken pottery pieces from an excavation of ancient Puebloan sites near San Ildefonso to Maria to create full scale examples for the museum. This collaboration inspired the designs of many of Maria and Julian’s pottery.

In 1919, Julian worked out the process of creating matte black-on-black style and by around the late 1920s Maria and Julian began to phase out their polychrome pottery in favor of the matte black-on-black style.

During their partnership, Maria and Julian travelled to demonstrate their techniques around the country, including the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the 1914 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, and the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair.

Following Julian’s death in 1943, Santana Martinez, the wife of Maria’s eldest son Adam, took over the painting of Maria’s pots. In 1957, Maria started to work her son Popovi Da, who brought back the polychrome pottery, made redware vessels, experimented with inlaying turquoise in the pottery, and created a new coloration of sienna pottery. Maria died in 1980.

During her life, Maria trained three generations of her family and shared her techniques with other women at San Ildefonso and other neighboring pueblos. She received honorary doctorates from the University of Colorado and New Mexico State University. Her work is in museum collections across the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Museum of the American Indian, Denver Art Museum, and Portland Art Museum.

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