Author Archives: Michael Evans

Helen Cordero, born in 1915 at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, is credited with the reinvention of the Cochiti figurative pottery tradition that started a revolution in contemporary Pueblo ceramics. Pueblo people in the Southwest have been making clay figures since ancestral times, but these forms were not widely practiced throughout the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. But in the late 1950s, Cordero began making pottery figures modeled after long-established figurine forms of the Singing Mother, or a seated female figure holding a child.… Read More

David Howard Hitchcock (American, 1861-1943), Big Island of Hawaii.Sold for $30,750

Whaling was extremely important to the development of many countries in the early nineteenth century because of the fat that lit lamps and greased machines, leading to the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the arrival of whaling crews in 1820, Hawai’i had a much different relationship with the whale. When overfishing became an issue in the Atlantic, many whalers turned to the Pacific and started docking in Hawai’i.… Read More

Andaman Islanders, c. 1900

I have always had a fascination with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, ever since I was young and read Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four, partially set in the Andamans. These days in my dealings with tribal art, I seldom come across objects from these far-flung isles, but when I do, they always hold a particular intrigue for me, no doubt due in part to Sherlock Holmes.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands form an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, between India to the west, and Myanmar, to the north and east.… Read More

The classic serape was the culmination of a century and a half of progress and growth in Navajo textile tradition. The Navajo learned to weave during the latter part of the 17th century from the Pueblos, who had been weaving cotton and other fabrics for hundreds of years. When the Spanish settled in the Southwest (from 1598) they introduced European treadle looms, Churro sheep to supply wool, and blue indigo dye. Churro wool and indigo blue soon became a part of the Pueblo weaving tradition.… Read More

Tongan war clubs are weapons usually known by the term ‘akau, which means stave. Tongan clubs are one of the few instantly classic and easily identifiable artifacts from Polynesia. They were widely collected from the period of James Cook’s voyages in the 1770s onwards, and reflect the militaristic collecting interests of sailors and traders, as well as a vigorous demand for non-western weapons in the European curiosities markets.‘Akau, along with spears, were the principal weapons of war in Tonga up until the middle of the 19th century, despite the introduction of firearms from western sailors and traders from the late 18th century onwards.… Read More