Opening: Back in Time: San Ildefonso Polychrome Pottery, 1890-1920

King Galleries is proud to announce a landmark exhibition, Back in Time: San Ildefonso Polychrome Pottery, 1890–1920, opening November 15, 2025, at our Santa Fe location. This exceptional presentation offers a rare glimpse into a transitional yet deeply innovative period in Pueblo pottery, bridging the elegance of ancestral traditions with the early sparks of modern artistic transformation.

The exhibition features a curated selection of polychrome pottery created during a pivotal 30-year span in San Ildefonso Pueblo, a time when artists responded to new markets, evolving aesthetics, and the growing presence of tourism in the Southwest. These masterworks, with their striking white slips and black-and-red painted designs, mark a vibrant moment just before the rise of the now-iconic black-on-black style pioneered by Maria and Julian Martinez.

This period of San Ildefonso pottery is known for white slip finished with black and red mineral-based pigments, geometric scrollwork and natural motifs, including stylized feathers and animal forms, and globular jars and tall-necked vessels with fluted or rolled rims which echo classic Tewa forms.

Gallery Owner Charles King will also give a talk about this subject during the Opening Reception on November 15.