Artist

Christine McHorse

born Morenci, AZ 1948-died Santa Fe, NM 2021

Media - mchorse_christine.jpg - 90079 — Originally photographed by Chuck Rosenak. Image is courtesy of the Chuck and Jan Rosenak research material, 1990-1999, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Also known as: Christine Nofchissey
Christine Nofchissey McHorse
Born: Morenci, Arizona, United States
Died: Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States

Biography: McHorse's work has an elegance and sophistication that defy stereotypes about folk art and traditional Native American art. McHorse began to make traditional Navajo pottery when she was in her late twenties. Having grown up off the reservation, she was introduced to the pottery craft by Lena Archuleta, her husband's grandmother. A Pueblo Indian from New Mexico's Taos Pueblo, Archuleta taught McHorse to make pots in that community's traditional style, but the younger potter soon learned the Navajo tradition and began to expand on both to develop her own distinctive approach.
Tom Patterson Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2001)
: Luce Artist Biography
Christine McHorse combines Navajo and Pueblo traditions in her ceramic and silver ware (Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Contemporary American Folk Art: A Collector's Guide, 1996). She uses clay from the mountains around Taos Pueblo in northern New Mexico, and bases her work on traditional Navajo designs and legends. She married Joel McHorse in 1973, and together they make pottery and jewelry with the help of their two sons. McHorse uses the traditional technique of coiling to make her pots, by winding strips of clay into a cylinder, then smoothing the surface. To finish her pieces, however, she ignores Navajo taboos by applying imagery to the clay and firing it in an electric kiln (Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia, 1990).

Works by this artist (3 items)

Christine McHorse, Wolves Courting at Full Moon, 1988, fired micaceous clay with piñon pitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1997.124.161

Wolves Courting at Full Moon

Artist

Christine McHorse

Date1988

fired micaceous clay with piñon pitch

Christine McHorse, Crow Pot, 1991, kiln-fired and pit-fired micaceous clay with pinon pitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock, 1997.124.159

Artist

Christine McHorse

Date1991

kiln-fired and pit-fired micaceous clay with pinon pitch

Christine McHorse, Lizard Pot, ca. 1990, pit-fired micaceous clay with piñon pitch, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1997.124.160

Artist

Christine McHorse

Dateca. 1990

pit-fired micaceous clay with piñon pitch

Related Posts

A black and white photograph of a woman sitting behind two ceramic pots

Craft and Decorative Arts04/16/2021

Christine McHorse, an Artist Whose Clay Works Pushed Against Conventions

Remembering the Navajo artist whose clay works pushed against conventions over her fifty-year career

A photograph of a woman holding a large basket in museum collection storage.

Curator of American and Native American Women’s Art and Craft