Hopi Pueblo Pottery Bowl By Lena Chio Charlie

ca.  1940

3.5" H x 11" D

Hand Coiled Clay Pottery with a Large Abstract Thunderbird Motif from the Nampeyo Family with Artist Mark of Corn (Corn Clan)

Has circular hairline slip cracks seen on exterior and interior of bowl as pictured. 

Lena Chio Charlie (ca. 1908-ca1960s  - Corn Clan) was a respected Hopi-Tewa potter from First Mesa (Hano), Arizona. She belonged to the Corn Clan (or sometimes listed as Kachina Clan) and was active primarily from the 1930s to the early 1960s (circa 1933–1961).

She came from a prominent pottery-making family with deep ties to the Nampeyo tradition. Sources describe her variously as a granddaughter or niece of the legendary potter Nampeyo of Hano and her husband Lesou. She was the daughter of Qoo-ma-lets-tewa (Mad Bear), sister to potters Irene Shupla and Hazel Shupla, mother of Sunbeam David, and grandmother of noted Hopi-Tewa painter and katsina carver Neil David. She assisted Nampeyo by painting pottery when the elder artist's eyesight failed. She married her second husband, Victor Charlie, in 1928 and lived below the mesa near First Mesa.

Her personal hallmark or signature is often a pictorial corn cob with leaves (representing "Blue Corn"), typically painted on the interior base of her pieces. This mark helps identify her work.