Hopi Art Revival



In 1895, an archeologist, Jesse walker Fewkes began excavating Sikyatki Ruin, an ancient Hopi village near First Mesa.

On the excavation crew was a Hopi Tewa man named Lesou. He took shards he found at the site home to his wife ,Nampeyo, who was an accomplished potter. She began to adapt the motifs and painted them onto her pottery.

A local trader, Thomas Keams, encouraged her to develop her use of the Sikyatki designs and this launched a new era in Hopi pottery.

At that time, the art of pottery was dying among the Hopi. Nampeyo's reintroduction of these Sikyatki pottery motifs revitalized Hopi pottery making and she is now considered the grandmother of inspiration for all Hopi potters today. Five generations of her family have continued the Nampeyo style, and potters from all over the Hopi reservation note her contribution to the renaissance in Hopi pottery.

This accomplishment is noteworthy both as an artistic turn around, and also because it created a new economy for the Hopi as the Sikyatki style pottery was sought after by collectors around the world.



In the 1930s, the Museum of Northern Arizona encouraged the Hopi to develop an overlay silversmith style based on the prehistoric pottery shard designs from Sityatki. At this time, during the American Depression, the Hopi urgently needed to develop a means of financial support, and the museum anthropologists were instrumental in helping the Hopi develop silver goods for the tourist and collectors market.



Studying prehistoric pottery …



and ancient murals on kiva walls ….



a revival of the Hopi art forms took place in the first half of the 1900s.