Institutionalizing taste: Kenneth Milton Chapman, the Indian Arts Fund, and the growth of fine art Pueblo pottery

• Main Author: Fricke, Suzanne Newman
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2003
• Subjects: American history
• ISBN: 9780496476275; 0496476270

The Indian Arts Fund (IAF) was founded to preserve traditional Pueblo pottery as it existed both in older pottery and as a living art, but its efforts created profound changes in the development of the art. This dissertation explores the impact Kenneth Chapman and the IAF had on the development of Pueblo pottery by examining the history of the IAF, the historical circumstances that fostered its formation, the views scholars have had toward Native cultures, and the major shift in Native art that took place in the twentieth century. Founded in 1922 by Kenneth Milton Chapman, Wesley Bradfield, Harry P. Mera, and Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, the IAF feared that the social, political, and economic changes at the turn of the century would lead to the death of Pueblo pottery. As a leader of the IAF, Chapman tried to popularize the work of contemporary potters in his writings, his work as the head judge at the Santa Fe Indian Fair, and in the formation of the IAF's collection. He wanted the ceramics to be recognized as a unique art form that reflected both older traditions and new skills. Chapman's ideas gained importance when they gained the support of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who provided the money for a large portion of IAF's collection and for the Laboratory of Anthropology, which became the IAF's first stable home. Chapman's efforts, however, brought results which he could not have anticipated. As contemporary Pueblo potters became more focused on aesthetics, they also became more iconoclastic, borrowing techniques and styles from each other or innovating new ones, and many of their pieces do not reflect the historic designs from the artist's Pueblo. Styles Chapman specifically disliked and techniques he actively discouraged became common and accepted practices. Though the IAF officially disbanded in 1972, the ideas on which the IAF was founded continue today. Pueblo pottery has become widely regarded as an art form rather than as a craft or an ethnographic object, and the fame of individual potters has risen. Chapman's efforts to popularize the art created a forum in which contemporary Pueblo potters could flourish, and they continue to do so.