Hopi Pueblo Polychrome Cylinder Pottery By Eva Yellowbird

ca. 1970s

6.875" H x 4.5" D

Hand Coiled Clay Pottery with a Light Orange Slipped Background and a Painted Deep Red and Dark Brown Colored Geometric Design

In Very Good Condition

Hopi pottery, especially from First Mesa (including Hopi-Tewa villages), often features fine-line geometric, bird, feather, or migration pattern designs in polychrome on yellow or cream slips. The tradition draws heavily from ancient Sikyatki Polychrome (c. 1375–1625 CE), which was revived in the late 19th/early 20th century by potters like Nampeyo. Cylinder forms are a noted variant, sometimes taller and more vase-like. 

Eva Yellowbird's work fits within this broader tradition of Hopi pottery making, which involves gathering local clays, hand-coiling without a wheel, smoothing, slipping, painting with mineral/vegetal paints, and firing outdoors or in pits.