April 14th, 2022: Outside the Box - Silver Objects 1930-1950

Beginning in the early 20th century, Native silversmiths began to expand their repertoire beyond jewelry to accommodate the eager stream of visitors to the Southwest. Navajo and Pueblo artists started incorporating traditional techniques such as stamping, repousse, overlay and inlay to decorate a variety of objects such as boxes, ashtrays, flatware and trays.

Some of these pieces are truly monumental, and surely represented an exciting opportunity for silversmiths to be working on large-scale objects.

Ranging in size from the tiniest pill boxes to tabletop masterpieces, each object in this collection represents an impressive amount of skill, from each solder joint to every perfectly aligned corner.