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Two rare original Charles Loloma preparatory jewelry drawing studies for a Charles Loloma 14K tufa-cast gold and Lander Blue turquoise “Corn Maiden” pendant, colored pen and ink on paper, 1974
Ex: Charles and Georgia Loloma Collection
These drawings are really extraordinary and important pieces with a fascinating story and history.
These are two Charles Loloma original pen and ink drawings done on a piece of hotel stationery and on its matching envelope. These drawings are essentially the preliminary and final preparatory studies for the creation of one of Charles Loloma’s most famous and iconic jewelry pieces ever, the extraordinary five-inch long 14K cast gold and Lander Spiderweb turquoise pendant pictured here which Loloma made as a special commission in 1974 for his Scottsdale, Arizona gallery owner and longtime colleague of ours, Robert Ashton, Jr. As it happens, this pendant
was just very recently sold earlier this year reportedly for well into the six figures ($100,000-plus) this past January as Lot #44 in Phillips Auctions, New York’s "New Terrains” sale of Contemporary Native American Art. The prominent Santa Fe Indian Arts dealer and scholar, Martha Hopkins Struever exhibited this pendant in her 2005 Wheelwright Museum one-man Charles Loloma Retrospective Exhibition in Santa Fe and also pictured it in her companion exhibition catalog "Loloma, Beauty is his Name” as seen below on pp. 14.
As we mentioned earlier, this pendant was originally commissioned in 1974 by Robert Ashton Jr.’s eponymous Ashton Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona for an unknown client. Robert Ashton was a key figure in creating the American Indian Arts business as we know it today beginning with his first show in Denver around 1970. Bob was good friends with the renowned Zuni Pueblo Indian trader, Charles Garrett (C.G.) Wallace (1898-1993) and he played an important role in orchestrating the famous Sotheby Parke Bernet auction of C.G. Wallace’s collection in 1975. His Ashton Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ in the 1970’s was the absolute dead center of the Indian Arts world at that time, he famously represented and was quite close friends with artists Charles Loloma, Fritz Scholder, Fannie Nampeyo, Garnet Pavatea and others. And, also during this time, Bob and his wife Sharon also started and published American Indian Art Magazine. Bob and his close friend and fellow dealer Richard M. Howard were the forever reigning experts in the field of ancient and historic Southwestern Pueblo pottery and specifically on the work of Hopi Pottery Matriarch, Nampeyo.
Robert Ashton was also a major figure in the Southwestern turquoise business and in 1973 not long after Nevada blackjack dealer, Rita J. Hapgood first discovered the rare Lander Blue turquoise deposit Ashton and Gallup, NM Indian trader, Joe Tanner purchased the majority of the mine’s small original output. Ashton in turn sold a good amount of this stone to his Gallery’s famous artist, Charles Loloma and in the process he commissioned Loloma to make this extraordinary pendant for an unknown client in 1974.
These beautifully detailed and extremely expressive drawings are the exact sketches that Charles Loloma would have shown to Robert Ashton and his client to finalize his vision of the pendant before committing it to precious metal and stone. The tufa casting block pictured here which was used to cast the gold metal in this pendant is now held in the permanent collection of The Heard Museum in Phoenix, we do not know who recently purchased the pendant itself, but these drawing studies were kept by Charles Loloma in his personal private collection from 1974 until his death in 1991 when they passed to his widow, Georgia Voisard Loloma from whose estate we recently purchased them.
At left, the original tufa-stone block that the molten gold was cast into photographed alongside the finished pendant. At right, the pendant was Lot #44 in an exhibition and sale entitled “New Terrains, Contemporary Native American Art" at Phillips in New York from January 5-23, 2024.
Left photo source and © Martha H. Struever, “Loloma, Beauty Is His Name”, Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, NM, 2005, pp. 14, pp.103. Right photo source and © Phillips Auctions, New York.
The drawing at left measures 7" height and 5" in width (sight) and the drawing at right measures 6 3/4" in height and 5" in width (sight). The framed size of the two images together is 13 1/2" in height and 16 1/2" in width and 1 3/4" in depth.
The images are beautifully matted and framed to the highest archival conservation standards in a finely beveled and splined light maple wood frame under UV-Resistant Museum conservation glass by Goldleaf Framemakers of Santa Fe, Santa Fe’s finest fine art framers. The drawings are in extremely good condition overall with some slight wrinkling and very slight graphite marks to the paper surface. The drawings are unsigned, but the provenance is impeccable, there is no doubt whatsoever of the absolute authenticity of these pieces.
In our view, these drawings are wonderful, historically significant and very beautiful pieces, not only
because they are such strikingly beautiful art works in their own right, but because they are also such a unique
and wonderful personal and intimate look into a brilliant and singular artist's creative process.
Provenance:
The Artist, Hotevilla Village, Hopi Third Mesa, AZ, 1974
Charles Loloma and Charles and Georgia Loloma Collections, Hotevilla, Phoenix and Santa Fe, 1974-2024
Fine Arts of the Southwest, Inc., Santa Fe, NM, 2024-Present
Price $4,750
Above center, the pendant was published in Robert Ashton's American Indian Art Magazine in the Autumn, 1975 issue, pp.59.
“If there is beauty in a piece of art, a person
can absorb it and become more beautiful.”
-Charles Loloma