Fannie Nampeyo
Hopi

Thunderbird Wedding Vase
c. 1975

10" H x 6.5" D

Fannie was arguably the most well known of all Nampeyo’s daughters and was prolific in her production of the “migration” pattern pottery that had become synonymous with Hopi pottery - and Nampeyo in particular. She had two sisters - Annie Healing and Nellie Douma. All three sisters had children who carried on the family tradition. Fannie had seven children: Tom Polacca, Iris Youvella, Tonita Hamilton, Elva, Leah, Harold, and Ellsworth - each of which were pottery artists at some time in their lives.

Their grandmother, Nampeyo, was a young woman, married to a man named Lesou, when she was encouraged by an ethnologist by the name of Jesse Walter Fewkes, and a trading post operator by the name of Thomas Keam (who was also the first Indian agent to the Hopi) to revitalize the ancient art form of decorative pottery making - which remnants were discovered first among the ruins of the nearby Sikyátki village. Subsequently, she has been credited with single-handedly reviving this once lost tradition.