The Dr. Samuel R. Poliakoff Collection of Western Art

Visitors to the collection will notice the name Nampeyo. An extended family of seven generations, descended from Nampeyo (1860-1942), that continues making pottery today, carrying on the matriarch’s innovative revival of Sityatki archaeological pottery. Leah Nampeyo, like her great-grandmother, carefully selects and prepares clay that subtly “blushes” during firing. But each potter writes his or her own indelible legacy too. The design on Leah Nampeyo’s pot is known as “migration” and is a design created by Nampeyo and continued by successive generations.