Pueblo pottery has been the subject of sustained American scholarship for almost 150 years. The earliest ethnographic studies grew from the 1879 Bureau of American Ethnology Smithsonian collecting expeditions led by James Stevenson and Frank Hamilton Cushing. The literature accumulated through the mid-twentieth-century classics of Alice Marriott, Kenneth Chapman, and the early SAR Press monographs. It deepened in the art-market period of the 1970s through the 1990s through the work of Susan Peterson, Larry Frank and Francis Harlow, Rick Dillingham, and Stephen Trimble. It has been reframed in the twenty-first century by Pueblo-authored scholarship published through the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Wheelwright Museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and SAR Press — scholarship that addresses the historical problems of the ethnographic frame and centers the perspectives of the potters, families, and communities the earlier scholarship described from the outside.
This page is the collecting reference for the resulting bibliography as it surfaces through NMLP intake. NMLP routes Pueblo pottery books from Santa Fe arts-community estates, Sandia/Kirtland scientific-estate libraries (where the Harlow connection is unusually dense because of his Los Alamos career), and Albuquerque academic-faculty estates particularly from the UNM Anthropology Department demographic. The reference framework here applies the NMLP authentication methodology and the closed-signature-pools record to the specific complications of Pueblo pottery scholarship: multiple editions of the same canonical biographies, the question of whether Maria Martinez herself signed which Peterson copies, the Harlow-Lanmon individual-Pueblo monograph series as a connected bibliography, and the contemporary Pueblo-authored corrective scholarship that re-frames the entire earlier record.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Why Pueblo pottery is the most-scholarly-attended category of American Indigenous art
Pueblo pottery reference books are highly collectible, with early scholarly works commanding premium prices among Southwest art collectors. Four overlapping reasons. First, continuity. Pueblo pottery has been continuously produced at Acoma, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Hopi, Zuni, and the other Pueblo communities for more than a thousand years; the prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan ceramic traditions (Mimbres, Anasazi black-on-white, Sikyatki Polychrome, Tonto Polychrome) flow without break into the historic-period and contemporary Pueblo work. No other American Indigenous ceramic tradition offers comparable temporal depth in a continuously producing community.
Second, the named-potter market. Beginning with Maria Martinez's collaboration with the Museum of New Mexico in the 1910s, Pueblo pottery developed an art-market structure unusual among Indigenous American craft traditions — individual potters became named, signed their work (Maria signing in the 1920s forward was a market-changing innovation introduced by Edgar Lee Hewett's Museum of New Mexico program), and accumulated reputational records that supported sustained scholarly biographical attention. The Martinez biographical literature alone (Marriott 1948, Peterson 1977, Spivey 2003) is more extensive than the literature on most non-Indigenous American ceramic artists.
Third, institutional concentration. Seven major institutions (named below) sit within a hundred-mile radius of Santa Fe and Albuquerque; their combined collecting, exhibition, and publishing capacity has produced the densest concentration of Indigenous-American-ceramics scholarship anywhere in the world. The combined collections at MIAC, the Wheelwright, the Maxwell, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, SAR, and (more distantly) the Heard total tens of thousands of Pueblo pots and the largest curated body of related scholarship.
Fourth, the contemporary corrective. Since approximately 2000 the literature has been increasingly Pueblo-authored, with potters, scholars, and curators from the Pueblo communities reframing the ethnographic and biographical record. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center's publishing program, the Pueblo Pottery Festival catalog series, the contemporary monographs from individual-Pueblo museum programs, and the Native scholarship at SAR and UNM Press constitute a growing body of work that any serious collection of the older literature now requires as critical context.
The four collecting periods of Pueblo pottery scholarship
The literature falls into four distinct collecting periods, each with characteristic publishers, scholarly conventions, and pricing tiers in the current secondary market.
Period one — foundational ethnography (1880s–1930s)
The earliest period grew from the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology expeditions of the late nineteenth century and continued through the 1929 publication of Ruth Bunzel's The Pueblo Potter. The work is now read as much for its historiographic limitations (the ethnographic frame, the assumption of "vanishing" cultures, the absence of Pueblo voices) as for its primary-source value, but the books in this period remain foundational reference material and command meaningful prices in the antiquarian trade.
Frank Hamilton Cushing
1857–1900 · Zuni Pueblo residency 1879–1884 · Bureau of American Ethnology
Cushing's Zuñi Breadstuff (1920, Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian; posthumous compilation) and My Adventures in Zuñi (compiled posthumously from 1882–1883 magazine articles) are the primary published sources from his Zuni residency. His pottery-specific ethnographic notes were absorbed into the broader Bureau of American Ethnology reports. Cushing material is uncommon in NM estate libraries because most was institutionally held; surviving private copies command meaningful prices.
Adolph Bandelier and Frederick Webb Hodge
Bandelier 1840–1914 · Hodge 1864–1956 · Closed signature pools
The major historiographers of the Pueblo Southwest in the early Bureau of American Ethnology period. Bandelier's The Delight Makers (1890) is the principal literary work; his archaeological reports on the Pajarito Plateau are the foundational survey of the prehistoric Pueblo ceramic record. Hodge edited the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (1907–1910, two volumes, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30) which constitutes the standard reference for tribal nomenclature for the next half-century. Both are closed signature pools; signed copies command meaningful premiums.
Ruth Bunzel
1898–1990 · Columbia University anthropology; Boasian school · Closed signature pool
Bunzel's The Pueblo Potter: A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art (Columbia University Press 1929, originally her Columbia PhD dissertation under Franz Boas) is the foundational ethnographic study of Pueblo pottery. Fieldwork at Zuni, San Ildefonso, Hopi (Hano), and Acoma in the 1920s. The 1929 first edition (Columbia University Press, blue cloth, no dust jacket on most surviving copies) is the collector target. Dover reprinted the book in 1972 as an unabridged paperback, and this Dover edition is the most common form encountered in NM estate libraries; the 1972 Dover trades meaningfully below the 1929 first. Bunzel went on to produce major Zuni ethnographic work in the BAE reports; her papers are at Columbia. Signed Bunzel material is uncommon and commands meaningful premiums.
Period two — mid-century classics (1930s–1970s)
The mid-century period saw the consolidation of Pueblo pottery scholarship into a popular-press biographical tradition and the establishment of the major NM institutional publishing programs (Museum of New Mexico Press, SAR Press, UNM Press). The two anchor publications are Alice Marriott's Maria (1948) and Kenneth Chapman's various Museum of New Mexico monographs.
Alice Marriott
1910–1992 · University of Oklahoma anthropology · Closed signature pool
Marriott's Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso (University of Oklahoma Press, 1948 first edition) is the foundational popular biography of Maria Martinez and the most widely circulated single book in the Pueblo pottery literature. Written while Maria was alive and in active production, with extensive ethnographic fieldwork at San Ildefonso, including detailed documentation of the matte-on-polished blackware technique. The 1948 first edition (University of Oklahoma Press, with dust jacket showing the iconic black pot photograph) is the collector target. Multiple University of Oklahoma Press subsequent printings exist (the book has been in print continuously since 1948) and trade at meaningful discounts to the first. Marriott (1910–1992) is a closed signature pool; her papers are at the Oklahoma Historical Society. Signed first editions trade in the mid three-figure range.
Kenneth Chapman
1875–1968 · Museum of New Mexico, founding curator of the Department of Ceramics · Closed signature pool
Chapman was the founding director of the Indian Arts Fund and the foundational figure in twentieth-century Pueblo pottery scholarship and collecting at the Museum of New Mexico. His The Pottery of San Ildefonso Pueblo (University of New Mexico Press, 1970, posthumous publication based on his collected research) is one of the principal references for the San Ildefonso tradition. His The Pottery of Santo Domingo Pueblo (School of American Research, 1953) is the major Santo Domingo (now Kewa) reference. Chapman material is uncommon in the trade because much was institutionally absorbed; surviving signed pieces command meaningful prices.
Frederic Douglas and René d'Harnoncourt
Douglas 1897–1956 · d'Harnoncourt 1901–1968 · Both closed pools
Their Indian Art of the United States (Museum of Modern Art, 1941) is the foundational popular-press introduction to Native American art for the mid-century American reading public, with substantial Pueblo pottery coverage. Published in connection with the landmark 1941 MoMA exhibition that did the most to establish Native American craft as "art" in the mid-century American institutional canon. The 1941 first edition with dust jacket is the collector target.
Period three — the art-market era (1970s–2000s)
The 1970s through the 1990s saw the explosion of Pueblo pottery as a defined art market, the rise of named-potter pricing, and the establishment of the contemporary scholarly canon. This is the densest period for the current collector literature; most of the books NMLP routes through intake from this period are still in active demand.
Larry Frank and Francis H. Harlow
Harlow 1928–2021 · Frank dates not fully documented but contemporaneous · Both closed/likely-closed pools
Their Historic Pottery of the Pueblo Indians, 1600–1880 (New York Graphic Society, 1974 first; expanded second edition Schiffer Publishing 1990) is the principal reference for historic-period Pueblo pottery identification. Harlow, a Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist (computational fluid dynamics) who developed a parallel career as a Pueblo pottery scholar, brought analytical rigor to the typology that established the standard period nomenclature and decorative-style classification still used by curators and dealers. The 1974 first edition with dust jacket is the collector target; the 1990 Schiffer second edition is meaningfully revised and is a separate collector object. Signed Harlow material trades in the low four-figure range.
Francis H. Harlow and Dwight P. Lanmon (individual-Pueblo monograph series)
Series published across the 1990s–2010s · Harlow d. 2021
Harlow's individual-Pueblo monograph series, mostly co-authored with Dwight P. Lanmon (director emeritus of the Wheelwright Museum) and published by Museum of New Mexico Press, constitutes the most comprehensive individual-Pueblo reference work ever assembled. Titles include The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo (Museum of New Mexico Press 2013), The Pottery of Zia Pueblo (School for Advanced Research Press 2003), The Pottery of San Ildefonso Pueblo (MNM Press 2008), The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo (MNM Press 2008), and several others. First editions of each are the collector target; the series functions as a connected bibliography rather than as standalone titles.
Susan Peterson
1925–2009 · Ceramic artist, scholar, USC faculty · Closed signature pool
Peterson's The Living Tradition of Maria Martinez (Kodansha International, 1977 first edition) is the photographically richer and technically deeper documentation of the Martinez pottery process than the Marriott biography. Includes detailed step-by-step photographs of the firing process, technical analysis of the matte-on-polished decoration, and extended interviews with Maria in her last years of production. The 1977 first edition with dust jacket is the collector target. Most significantly: a portion of the original printing was signed by Maria Martinez herself before her March 1980 death. Copies with the Maria Martinez signature (typically inscribed on the half-title page or frontispiece, accompanied by Susan Peterson's signature) trade in the upper four-figure range and have crossed the five-figure threshold at major auction. Plain Susan-Peterson-signed copies (without the Martinez signature) trade in the low four-figure range. Peterson's subsequent Lucy M. Lewis: American Indian Potter (Kodansha 1984) and her general Native American pottery monographs are also collected.
Rick Dillingham
1952–1994 · Santa Fe ceramic artist and scholar · Closed signature pool (early death at 42)
Dillingham reframed the Pueblo pottery literature by focusing on multigenerational potter families rather than on individual potters or on Pueblos as monolithic units. His Acoma & Laguna Pottery (School of American Research Press, 1992) and Fourteen Families in Pueblo Pottery (University of New Mexico Press, 1994) are the principal cross-tradition references published during the 1990s. Dillingham died in 1994 at age 42 (the year of Fourteen Families's publication); his closed-pool signature carries the additional weight of his foreshortened scholarly trajectory. Signed first editions of either book trade in the mid-to-upper three-figure range; the 1992 first of Acoma & Laguna is particularly scarce in fine condition with dust jacket intact.
Stephen Trimble
b. 1950 · Photographer and writer · Open signature pool
Trimble's Talking with the Clay: The Art of Pueblo Pottery (School of American Research Press, 1987 first edition; revised and expanded 2007 second edition) is the principal mid-priced introduction to Pueblo pottery for the contemporary general reader. The 1987 first edition (SAR Press, photographically illustrated throughout) is the collector target; the 2007 revised edition is meaningfully different content (Trimble revisited every Pueblo, photographed contemporary potters, updated the scholarship to incorporate the 1990s family-lineage framework) and trades as a separate collector object rather than as a reprint. Both editions in fine condition with dust jackets trade in the low three-figure range. Trimble is an open signature pool; signed copies are available and command modest premiums.
Richard Spivey
Closed signature pool
Spivey's Maria (Northland Press, 1979) and the later The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2003 first) are the third major contribution to the Maria Martinez biographical canon. The 1979 Northland Press Maria is the smaller-format earlier work; the 2003 MNM Press Legacy is the comprehensive scholarly retrospective published two decades after Maria's death, incorporating the full Martinez-family lineage through five generations. The 2003 first edition in fine condition with dust jacket is the collector target. Signed Spivey material trades in the mid three-figure range.
Period four — contemporary Native-led scholarship (2000s–present)
The contemporary period is characterized by an increasing number of Pueblo authors, curators, and scholars producing the scholarship that earlier generations of non-Native ethnographers produced from the outside. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center publishing program, the SAR Press contemporary catalog, and individual-Pueblo museum programs (the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is owned and operated by the 19 NM Pueblos through the All Pueblo Council of Governors) constitute the documentary record of contemporary Pueblo pottery.
Specific landmarks include the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center's permanent collection catalog series, the National Museum of the American Indian Pueblo material catalogs, contemporary monographs from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian on individual potter retrospectives, and the growing body of Pueblo-authored scholarly contributions to American Indian Art Magazine, the Journal of the Southwest, and the various SAR Press symposium volumes. The Pueblo Pottery Festival held annually at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center has produced a continuing series of festival catalogs documenting contemporary potters.
I pick up books for free anywhere in the metro area. Call 702-496-4214 to schedule.
The nine Pueblo pottery traditions a collector should know
San Ildefonso Pueblo
The Maria and Julian Martinez tradition. Matte-on-polished blackware (developed c. 1919–1921 with the avanyu serpent motif as the signature design), redware, and the technical innovations Maria's lineage produced through Popovi Da, Tony Da, and the contemporary generation. The literature: Marriott 1948, Peterson 1977, Spivey 1979 and 2003, Chapman 1970, the Harlow-Lanmon 2008 San Ildefonso volume.
Santa Clara Pueblo
The Tafoya family lineage from Sara Fina through Margaret Tafoya through five generations of named potters (Margaret's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are themselves a documented potter family). Blackware and redware, the deeply carved "pumpkin" and bear-paw motifs, the tall storage jar (tinaja) form. The literature: Mary Ellen and Laurens Hammack's Born of Fire: The Pottery of Margaret Tafoya (Avanyu Publishing 2004), the Harlow-Lanmon Santa Clara volume, multiple SAR Press monographs on individual Santa Clara potters.
Acoma Pueblo (Sky City)
Lucy M. Lewis (c. 1890–1992) and Marie Z. Chino fine-line painted decoration, very thin walls (Acoma is famous for the thinnest functional Pueblo pottery walls), the Mimbres revival tradition rediscovering and reinterpreting prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan designs. The literature: Dillingham 1992 Acoma & Laguna Pottery, the Harlow-Lanmon Pottery of Acoma Pueblo 2013, Peterson 1984 on Lucy Lewis specifically.
Cochiti Pueblo
Helen Cordero (1915–1994) created the Storyteller figurine form in 1964; the Cochiti figurative tradition extends back to the nineteenth century but Cordero's invention reshaped the contemporary market. The literature: Barbara Babcock's The Pueblo Storyteller (University of Arizona Press 1986) is the principal Cordero monograph; SAR Press has published the broader Cochiti figurative-tradition scholarship.
Hopi (First and Second Mesa, Arizona)
Nampeyo of Hano (c. 1860–1942) led the Sityatki Polychrome Revival from approximately 1895 forward — the rediscovery of fourteenth-fifteenth-century prehistoric polychrome designs from the Sityatki archaeological site and their reintroduction into contemporary Hopi-Tewa work. Five generations of named Nampeyo descendants continue the tradition. The literature: Edwin L. Wade and Allan Cooke's Canvas of Clay: Seven Centuries of Hopi Ceramic Art (Museum of Northern Arizona 2012), Barton Wright's Hallmarks of the Southwest (Schiffer 2000) for hallmark identification, multiple monographs on individual Nampeyo-lineage potters.
Zuni Pueblo
Heart-line deer motifs, fetish jars, the distinctive raised-rim olla form. Zuni pottery is less commercially prominent than San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Acoma, or Hopi but has a continuous historic-period production record and a distinctive design vocabulary. The literature: the Harlow-Lanmon Pottery of Zuni Pueblo 2008, Ruth Bunzel's 1929 Zuni-focused fieldwork, the broader Zuni-specific Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology reports from the 1880s expeditions.
Jemez Pueblo (Walatowa)
Jemez stopped commercial pottery production for decades in the early-to-mid twentieth century, then revived the tradition from the 1970s forward, producing the contemporary Jemez polychrome and the distinctive pueblo-people figurines. The revival makes Jemez a relatively shorter-history contemporary tradition compared to the continuous-production Pueblos. The literature: SAR Press has published the principal Jemez revival scholarship; multiple individual-potter monographs document the post-1970s makers.
Zia Pueblo
Sunbird and lightning motifs, the source of the Zia sun symbol that appears on the New Mexico state flag (the symbol was adopted in 1925 without Pueblo consultation and the Zia have made multiple requests for usage-rights acknowledgment from the state of NM). Zia pottery is less commercially prominent than the other major Pueblos but has a distinctive design vocabulary. The literature: the Harlow-Lanmon Pottery of Zia Pueblo (SAR Press 2003), Ralph Stark's earlier Zia work.
Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo)
The carved redware tradition. Ohkay Owingeh changed its name from San Juan Pueblo in 2005 to its pre-Hispanic name (the tribal council vote was 9-0). Older literature uses "San Juan"; current scholarship uses Ohkay Owingeh. The redware-carving tradition is shared with neighboring Santa Clara but distinct in decorative vocabulary. The literature is dispersed across the broader Tewa Pueblo scholarship rather than concentrated in individual-Pueblo monographs.
The institutional canon — seven anchor institutions
Each of these seven institutions is the primary research and provenance-verification address for a major segment of the Pueblo pottery scholarly canon. A serious collector or executor evaluating a Pueblo pottery book library will, in practice, route to one or more of these institutions for verification, valuation, or eventual donation routing.
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC, Santa Fe, part of the Museum of New Mexico system, 710 Camino Lejo) — holds the largest curated Pueblo pottery collection in the world, accumulated since the founding of the School of American Archaeology (SAR's predecessor) in 1907. Publishes the principal scholarly catalogs through Museum of New Mexico Press. Holds the Harlow papers and the Indian Arts Fund pottery collection. The institutional anchor for Tewa, Tiwa, and Keres Pueblo material.
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (Santa Fe, 704 Camino Lejo) — founded 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright with Hosteen Klah. Holds the Wheelwright collection, the Case Trading Post archive, and significant Pueblo pottery holdings. Dwight P. Lanmon was director emeritus and the Harlow-Lanmon individual-Pueblo monographs are partly grounded in Wheelwright holdings.
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC, Albuquerque, 2401 12th Street NW) — owned and operated by the 19 NM Pueblos through the All Pueblo Council of Governors. The contemporary Native-led publishing program is largely centered here. Hosts the annual Pueblo Pottery Festival. The institutional address for Pueblo-authored scholarship and contemporary potter monographs.
School for Advanced Research (SAR Press, Santa Fe, 660 Garcia Street) — SAR (formerly School of American Research, renamed 2007) is the primary academic anthropology institute for the Southwest. SAR Press publishes the principal scholarly monograph series including Dillingham 1992, Trimble 1987 and 2007, the Harlow-Lanmon series, and the Indian Arts Research Center catalogs. SAR's Indian Arts Research Center holds a major Pueblo pottery study collection.
Museum of New Mexico Press — the principal publisher of Pueblo pottery catalogs and monographs, including Spivey 2003, the Harlow-Lanmon series volumes published outside SAR Press, and the institutional MIAC and Wheelwright catalogs.
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque) — holds the Clark Field collection and major Hopi material; publishes UNM Press pottery monographs including Dillingham 1994 Fourteen Families. The Albuquerque academic anchor for Pueblo pottery scholarship.
Heard Museum (Phoenix, 2301 N. Central Ave) — holds the largest Native American art collection outside NM. The Heard publishes catalogs that frame Pueblo material in the wider Southwest Native art context and is the institutional address for cross-tradition contemporary Native art scholarship.
Not sure what you have? Text me a photo at 702-496-4214 and I'll tell you what I see.
Five identification problems for collectors and executors
One. The Peterson Living Tradition Maria-signed vs Peterson-only-signed distinction. The 1977 Kodansha first edition of The Living Tradition of Maria Martinez was issued in a regular printing; a portion of copies were signed by Maria Martinez before her March 1980 death, typically with the signature on the half-title page in pencil. Susan Peterson herself signed copies as well, often co-located on the half-title or title page. The Maria-signed copies command upper-four-figure to five-figure prices; Peterson-only-signed copies command low-four-figure prices. Unsigned 1977 first editions in fine condition with dust jacket command mid three-figure prices. The Maria signature is documented in the published bibliographic record at the Smithsonian; specialist dealers track which copies in the trade carry which signatures.
Two. The Marriott Maria 1948 first vs subsequent printings. Maria: The Potter of San Ildefonso has been in print continuously from the University of Oklahoma Press since 1948. The 1948 first edition is identifiable by the absence of subsequent-printing notation on the copyright page and by the original gilt-stamped dust jacket design. Subsequent printings (1959, 1972, 1987, several others) carry the additional printing notation and trade at meaningful discounts to the first. The book has been a steady seller for seventy-eight years; a typical NM estate library will have a mid-to-late-printing copy rather than the 1948 first.
Three. The Bunzel 1929 first vs 1972 Dover reprint. The Pueblo Potter was originally published by Columbia University Press in 1929 in blue cloth (no dust jacket on most surviving copies). The 1972 Dover Publications reprint is an unabridged paperback edition that trades at substantially lower prices and is by far the more common form in NM estate libraries. The 1929 first carries meaningful premium; the 1972 Dover is a working-library reference item.
Four. The Frank-and-Harlow 1974 New York Graphic Society first vs 1990 Schiffer second edition. The 1974 first edition (New York Graphic Society, with dust jacket) is the original collector target. The 1990 Schiffer Publishing second edition is meaningfully expanded with additional plates, revised typology, and updated chronology; it is a separate collector object rather than a simple reprint. Both editions in fine condition trade in the mid-to-upper three-figure range; the 1974 first carries a modest premium for "first appearance" but the 1990 second carries comparable value because of the expansion.
Five. The Trimble Talking with the Clay 1987 first vs 2007 revised expanded edition. The 1987 SAR Press first edition is the original; the 2007 revised expanded edition is substantially different content (Trimble revisited every Pueblo, photographed contemporary potters, updated the family-lineage framework to incorporate Dillingham's 1990s work). Both editions are collected; the 2007 incorporates contemporary potter biographies that the 1987 could not include. A serious collector wants both. Both trade in the low three-figure range in fine condition.
The collector market — three tiers
Tier 1 trophy items. Susan Peterson The Living Tradition of Maria Martinez signed by Maria Martinez herself; signed Rick Dillingham Fourteen Families or Acoma & Laguna first editions; the Bunzel Pueblo Potter 1929 first in fine condition; signed Frank-and-Harlow 1974 first; signed Margaret Tafoya monographs. These trade in the upper three-figure to low four-figure range at specialist Native American art dealers, with the Martinez-signed Peterson commanding the highest premium and occasionally crossing the five-figure threshold at major Native American art auctions (Cowan's, Heritage, Bonhams).
Tier 2 collector targets. First editions of the canonical monographs in good condition with original dust jacket: Marriott 1948 Maria; Frank-and-Harlow 1974 Historic Pottery; Dillingham 1992 Acoma & Laguna and 1994 Fourteen Families; Trimble 1987 and 2007 Talking with the Clay; Spivey 2003 Legacy of Maria; the individual-Pueblo Harlow-Lanmon monographs (Acoma 2013, Zia 2003, San Ildefonso 2008, Zuni 2008, Santa Clara). These trade in the low to mid three-figure range, with signed copies carrying modest premiums.
Tier 3 working-library targets. Subsequent printings of major monographs (later Marriott printings, Dover Bunzel 1972 paperback); museum exhibition catalogs (MIAC, Wheelwright, IPCC, Heard exhibition publications); the SAR Press paperback editions and softcovers; the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center festival catalog series; general Native American art reference books that include Pueblo pottery chapters (Schaaf's Pueblo Indian Pottery: 750 Artist Biographies, Hayes and Blom's Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni). These trade in the upper two-figure to low three-figure range.
The category is collected actively across three overlapping markets: serious Pueblo pottery collectors who own pieces and need reference material to support their collecting; scholars and curators building working research libraries; and general Southwest-history collectors who want the canonical visual references but do not necessarily own pottery. Pueblo pottery books surface regularly in NM estate libraries from the Santa Fe arts-community demographic, the Sandia/Kirtland scientific-estate demographic (the Harlow Los Alamos connection makes this unusually dense for Pueblo pottery material), and the Albuquerque UNM-anthropology-faculty demographic.
Cultural context and contemporary scholarship
The earlier ethnographic literature (Bunzel, Cushing, Bandelier, Hodge, the early SAR generation) is now read in light of the substantial body of contemporary critical scholarship that addresses its limitations — the colonial frame, the absence of Pueblo voices, the extraction of cultural knowledge without consent, the salvage-ethnographic assumption that the Pueblo cultures were "vanishing." Contemporary Pueblo-authored scholarship through the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Wheelwright, SAR, and individual-Pueblo museum programs has been reframing the record since approximately 2000. A serious collector or scholar building a Pueblo pottery library now requires both the older literature (for primary-source accounts of the pottery itself) and the contemporary corrective (for the framework within which the older literature is read).
Some ceremonial and ritual ceramic material has cultural-protocol restrictions on photographic reproduction and detailed scholarly description. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, individual Pueblo cultural-preservation offices, and the All Pueblo Council of Governors maintain the standards for what is appropriate to reproduce. Recent scholarship (SAR Press's contemporary catalog program, IPCC publications) routinely goes through Pueblo cultural-protocol review before publication. Older literature that includes images and descriptions of ceremonial material is now read with that contemporary awareness; collectors who own books with such material are appropriately cautious about how they discuss it.
The NMLP intake position
Pueblo pottery books surface through NMLP intake every week, particularly from three donor demographics: Santa Fe arts-community estates (where the full range from Bunzel 1929 to contemporary IPCC catalogs appears), Sandia/Kirtland scientific-estate libraries (where the Harlow Los Alamos connection produces unusually dense Pueblo pottery scholarship intake), and Albuquerque UNM-anthropology-faculty estates (where the Maxwell Museum–adjacent academic literature is prominent). The standard NMLP intake position applies: any condition, any quantity, free statewide pickup, no minimum, no tax receipt (NMLP is for-profit).
If a donation includes Tier 1 trophy material, NMLP routes the donor toward the sister buy-side SellBooksABQ for cash purchase rather than donation, or toward specialist Native American art auction houses if the volume justifies. Tier 2 and Tier 3 material flows through the standard NMLP routing: hand-sorted at the warehouse, listed on Amazon and eBay through SellBooksABQ at price levels appropriate to the tier, donation-forward channels for the resold-but-not-collectable, partnership-routing to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center library or to UNM CSWR or to the SAR Indian Arts Research Center library when the material matches their institutional collecting priorities.
Pueblo pottery books that arrive with documented provenance (potter signatures, exhibition acquisition labels, named-collection bookplates) are archived through the open NMLP Donation Archive when they are regionally significant. Future Tier 1 finds — particularly any Martinez-signed Peterson copies, signed Dillingham firsts, or signed Frank-and-Harlow firsts — will be documented with full photography and bibliographic record.
Cite This Guide
Eldred, J. (May 2026). Pueblo Pottery Books — A Collector's Authority Guide to the Scholarly Canon. New Mexico Literacy Project.
https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/pueblo-pottery-books-collecting
Content is original research by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite with attribution.