Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest

Edited by Richard F. Townsend; with essays by Ken Kokrda, Barbara Moulard, and Richard F. Townsend

In the flourishing ancient Indian communities of the American Southwest and northwest Mexico, master potters created ceramic arts that are considered among the most accomplished in the world. The symbolic imagery and distinctive local styles of the region are unmistakable—simple volumetric shapes covered with complex, interlocking geometrical designs that are sometimes combined with bold abstract animal, human, and composite figures. Within this shared tradition are clearly identifiable local styles and symbolic vocabularies, and this lavishly illustrated book focuses on one of them: the ceramic works of the Casas Grandes-Paquimé area of northwest Mexico and adjoining parts of New Mexico and Arizona, c. A.D. 1280-1450.

For the first time on a comprehensive scale, expert art historians and an artist-teacher discuss the complex imagery of approximately 90 Casas Grandes vessels with 50 pieces representing other major styles of the Greater Southwest. Superb examples show polychromatic designs of real and mythological animals, together with abstract human figures and remarkably varied geometries, demonstrating the imaginative complexity and exceptional achievement of the Casas Grandes potters. Certain motifs reflect affinities with distant Mesoamerica, yet the authors show that these forms were absorbed into a visual vocabulary that reflected the unique artistic and cosmological outlook of Casas Grandes within the native Southwestern cultural tradition.

Exhibition: April 22–August 13, 2006

Art Institute of Chicago 2005
10 x 11in.; 208p.; 33 black and white + 214 color illustrations
Hardcover $45.00 ISBN: 0300111487

Order online from the Art Institute Museum Shop or call 1-800-905-8537.

Available to booksellers at wholesale prices from Yale University Press.