Description

1868-1930 

This splendidly illustrated book celebrates the historic silver and turquoise jewelry of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians.  It presents for the first time over 300 superb objects that are usually hidden from view in museum storerooms and private collections across the United States.  Larry Frank discusses the history of this jewelry from 1868, when the Navajos were restored to their homeland, to 1930, when tourist demand and mass production ended the innovative first phase of the craft.

He explores early design sources in contemporary Spanish, Mexican, and Plains Indian work; describes Navajo tools and techniques (often used under conditions of extreme hardship); traces the cultural development of jewelry-making from a past-time to an esteemed profession; and notes the Pueblo Indians’ contribution – the sophisticated use of turquoise.  Of interest to specialists will be his reevaluation of the Plains Indian contribution and his dating sequence, based on close examination of the style and technique of hundreds of objects.

Indian Silver Jewelry contains 253 close-up photographs – 52 of them in color – of conchas, necklaces, bracelets, rings, hair ornaments, bridles, and other pieces, as well as rare photographs of Indians wearing jewelry.  The illustrations are grouped by collection – The Smithsonian Institution, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of New Mexico, the Heard Museum, the Wheelwright Museum, the Millicent Rogers Museum, the Lynn D. Trusdell Collection, and assorted private collections.  The detailed captions invite the reader to look, compare, and discover for himself the extraordinary beauty and vitality of Southwest Indian silver jewelry.