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Lot 134A
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Three Hohokam & Tewa Pottery Vessels - Ex-Andy Warhol
Three Hohokam & Tewa Pottery Vessels - Ex-Andy Warhol
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Native American, Southwestern United States, Arizona (Hohokam) and New Mexico, Rio Grande Pueblo (Tewa), ca. 1300–1700 CE. A trio of utilitarian earthenware vessels from the American Southwest, united by service in the everyday hearth and kitchen. The shallow open bowl is Hohokam, its interior crusted with gypsum and a waxy residue that hints at storage or processing of some prepared substance. Beside it stand two micaceous jars whose clay glitters faintly where firing exposed the mineral flecks: a small globular Tewa Polished Micaceous vessel, smudged to a sooty black, and a larger Sapawe Micaceous jar of the Late Polished Interior variety, its body warmed by oxidized russet tones. Plain, sturdy, and shaped by hand without slip painting, these are working pots, the kind that carried water, cooked stews, and held grain across centuries of Pueblo and desert life. Size of largest (bowl): 7.5" D x 2.8" H (19.1 cm D x 7.1 cm H).

Provenance elevates this group well beyond its humble function: all three were once owned by Andy Warhol, the Pop Art icon and voracious collector, and were dispersed in the landmark Sotheby's sale of his estate. Warhol's hoard of Native American and ethnographic material, much of it acquired in the years before his death, became one of the most talked-about facets of that ten-day auction, which transformed the contents of his Manhattan townhouse into a cultural event. Objects bearing the Warhol provenance carry a documented chain of ownership that links anonymous Indigenous craft to one of the twentieth century's defining artistic personalities, a juxtaposition collectors prize.

Micaceous wares such as the Tewa and Sapawe jars were valued by Rio Grande Pueblo potters for their thermal-shock resistance, which made them ideal cooking vessels; the natural mica in the clay lends a characteristic shimmer prized to this day. The Hohokam bowl belongs to the desert farming tradition of southern Arizona, whose people engineered extensive irrigation canals along the Salt and Gila rivers.

Provenance: private Denver, Colorado, USA collection; ex-private New York, USA collection; ex-Sotheby's New York, April 28th, 1988, "The Andy Warhol Collection: American Indian Art," lot 1620 (2 of 57) and lot 1621 (1 of 10); ex-Andy Warhol Collection

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Item # 203168

  • Condition: Very Good. Larger jar has chipping and losses to rim. Stable fissure to rim of bowl. All have light surface wear commensurate with age. Heavy gypsum and wax encrustations to interior of bowl. Otherwise, more petite jar and bowl are intact and all are very nice. Accompanied by Andy Warhol Collection labels.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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