Mary E. J. Colter’s Collection of Native American Jewelry
Architect and decorator Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1958) had a life-long interest in the arts and cultures of Indigenous peoples. After 1902 when she began working for the Southwestern hospitality company Fred Harvey, Colter’s opportunities for collecting grew. Whether from her travels in search of furniture for a hotel, in researching Ancestral Puebloan architectural precedents, while attending Inter-Tribal Ceremonials, or in one of Fred Harvey’s “curio” shops, Colter added to her collections of baskets, pots, and jewelry during the course of her career. By the time Colter retired in 1948, her collection of Hopi, Navajo, and other Native American jewelry included more than 500 pieces, Arnold Berke writes.
Colter kept notes of her acquisitions describing where she purchased them and what she had learned about them from the seller. Her collections spanned centuries. While she admired the artistry of the jewelry, she also enjoyed wearing the pieces. She was known to have a ring on every finger and sometimes on her thumbs, too. She also wore bracelets, necklaces, hair combs, and sometimes even a stomacher.
Colter, who started her career as an artist, was said to be “especially interested in the handcraft of the Indians and how they could use almost any materials to make beautiful jewelry, and used the creatures of the earth for designs for much of their jewelry,” an anonymous obituary typescript reads. This interest in using the materials at hand is also reflected in Colter’s designs of the Desert View Watchtower and Bright Angel Lodge, both on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
Photo by Laura Gilpin, © 1979 Amon Carter Museum of American Art
In 1952, Colter exhibited her jewelry collection at the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the photo taken by renowned photographer Laura Gilpin at a party honoring Colter before the exhibition opened to the public, Colter is seen adorned in pieces from her jewelry as she talks to archaeologist Marjorie Ferguson Lambert.
Colter later donated her jewelry collection to Mesa Verde National Park which has recently begun the work of preserving and exhibiting it. A newspaper article after Colter’s death in 1958 reported, “Her collection of Indian and Spanish jewelry was considered one of the finest in the nation.”
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Sources:
Arnold Berke, Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.
Roy Nelson in transcription of December 21, 1979 interview by Julie Russell, GRCA 36789, Grand Canyon Museum Collection.
Barbara L. Cullen, transcript of November 13, 1977 interview with Virginia L. Grattan, MS 656 Box F2, Virginia Grattan Collection.
“Mary E. J. Colter,” obituary typescript, n.d., 3, RC39 (7) 1, Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives, Heard Museum, Phoenix.
“Rings on her Fingers,” Santa Fe New Mexican, April 20, 1952: 9.
“Rites for Colter held,” Albuquerque Tribune, January 9, 1958: 13.