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An exceptional early Hopi tufa-cast silver bracelet by Charles Loloma, c.1956

Every great artist of note has had different periods of their creative lives and work which are marked and defined by certain characteristics of their art such as the so-called “Blue” or “Pink” Period Pablo Picasso paintings of his early life. Years before he began his now-famous iconic silkscreens of pop culture icons, Andy Warhol drew beautiful shoe illustrations for Department Stores, Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock started his career as a realistic mural painter, Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, W.R. Leigh, Maynard Dixon and many other famous Western American painters began their painting careers as magazine, newspaper and book illustrators. Later in life, Remington and Russell also became highly regarded sculptors.

In a much similar manner, the great 20th Century Hopi jewelry master and artistic polymath, Charles Loloma began his long and distinguished artistic career not as a jeweler at all, but as a talented painter in his teens after which he re-invented himself artistically as a brilliant art pottery maker in his late 20’s and only after that did he begin his initial forays into jewelry making in his early-to-mid 30’s under the influence and instruction of two pioneering American Modernist jewelry makers, H. Fred Skaggs of Arizona and Bob Winston of California.

At some unknown time and to some unknown person Struever later sold the bracelet. It was next seen by us in the Wheelwright Museum's Charles Loloma retrospective exhibition in Santa Fe in 2005 and published at the same time in Martha Struever's exhibition catalog, "Loloma, Beauty is his Name" after which it disappeared from sight completely for the next 20 years until just very recently when it resurfaced and we were fortunately able to acquire it back. Our first impression upon getting it back in our hands again was that this “old Friend” hadn’t aged one bit and in fact looked considerably fresher, more beautiful and more dynamic than ever before. After we originally purchased this bracelet in 1994 our interest in Loloma’s early silver jelwery work was strongly piqued and over the years since then we have been able to acquire a number of other examples of Loloma’s early silver pieces several of which are pictured below. In the process, we also further piqued Marti Struever’s own interest in these early pieces and she likewise acquired a few more of them and later wished that she had been able to include some of these additional examples of ours and hers in her book.

The bracelet’s organic silver form is beautifully realized and most carefully and finely contoured and subtly shaped in in three sculptural dimensions. Loloma skillfully and artistically created a beautiful and dynamic interplay between the more roughly textured, unpolished dark greyish-black areas of the silver and the brighter, reflective highly polished smoother areas of the precious metal. This sinuous light and dark interplay and visual tension defines the piece sculpturally giving it a great deal of life and visual vitality and appeal. In this way, the bracelet uniquely appears to be both monumental and personally intimate at the same time. Solidity and grace working together in harmony. This uniquely distinctive method of working with the cast metal surfaces shows the distinct influence of both H. Fred Skaggs and Bob Winston on Loloma’s early jewelry as both Skaggs and Winston were master metal casters who themselves employed the technique of mixing both polished and unpolished metal surrfaces in different areas of the same pieces of jewelry.

The bracelet measures 7/8" in width at its widest point and it tapers asymmetrically down to 1/4" and 3/16" in width respectively at the distinctively shaped and curled terminal ends. The bracelet rises 1/2" in height at its highest point above the top of the wrist. The bracelet is sized for a smaller wrist. The inner circumference end-to-end is

5" and the gap between the terminals is 1 1/16" for a total interior circumference of 6 1/16". The bracelet weighs an extremely comfortable and easy to wear 43 grams or 1 1/2 ounces. The bracelet is in remarkably excellent original condition overall and particularly so for its 69 or so years of age with no noticeable damages and very little evidence of wear. One of the bracelet’s most interesting and especially attractive features is its unique and beautiful carved and cast into the metal rendition of Charles Loloma’s artistic and distinctively attractive stylized last name signature "Loloma".

A final interesting observation is seen in the photo above in which we have pictured this early Loloma bracelet alongside a very similar-looking much more contemporary Hopi silver tufa-cast bracelet which was made in 2019

by the now World-famous Hopi jeweler, Charles Loloma’s talented Niece and longtime former studio apprentice, Verma “Sonwai” Nequatewa (b.1949). This piece appears for all intents and purposes to be Verma’s own personal artistic interpretation of this early Charles Loloma piece which was originally created when the now 76 year

old Verma was just seven years old. To review our website listing of the Sonwai tufa-cast silver bracelet

pictured above, please click here.

And now, finally, after our very long-winded windup, here’s the pitch. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an extremely rare and beautiful piece by one of the most original and talented Native American artists in history

and an opportunity to add your name to the list of distinguished and interesting personalities who have created, bought, sold, owned and otherwise admired this bracelet. The word “Loloma” in Hopi literally means “Beauty” and this piece very powerfully projects it all over the place. We should all be this eternally beautiful.

SOLD

PROVENANCE

The Artist, c. 1956

Private Collection(s), c. 1956-1994

Robert Ashton, Jr. Santa Fe, 1994

Fine Arts of the Southwest, Santa Fe, 1994-95

Martha H. Struever, Santa Fe, 1995-Unknown

Private Collection(s), Unknown-2025

Fine Arts of the Southwest, Santa Fe, 2025

And now on to the bracelet’s interesting known history, which personally begins for us in 1994 some 38 years after the bracelet was made, with another of our distinguished late Santa Fe Native art business colleagues, Robert Ashton Jr. who over the course of his long career as a Native American art impresario and Magazine publisher, helped discover and promote the work and careers of a number of important Native American artists,

two of the most prominent among them being Charles Loloma and Fritz Scholder. Through his influential Ashton Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, Robert Ashton personally represented Charles Loloma throughout the 1970’s.

One afternoon in the summer of 1994, Bob Ashton called us to say that he had just acquired one of Charles Loloma’s very earliest silver bracelets, this one, and suggested that we might be interested in purchasing it. Needless to say we were and we purchased the bracelet immediately. The two photos just above were taken by us on our dining room table a day or so after we bought the bracelet from Bob. A year or so later, in 1995, we had occasion to show this bracelet to our aforementioned colleague, fellow Loloma expert, enthusiast, author and personal friend of the artist, Martha Struever who strongly suggested that we sell the bracelet to her which

we somewhat reluctantly agreed to do. (MArti basically made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.)

This rare and stunning cast silver cuff bracelet is one of those very earliest artistic expressions of Loloma’s jewelry, dating from around 1956 when Loloma was 35 years old according to our late great colleague, Martha H. Struever, Loloma’s artistic biographer and herself one of the former owners of this very same bracelet which is pictured just below in her seminal volume “Loloma, Beauty is his Name” (Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005).

And in these early years of his jewelry career, long before it became world famous and increasingly fancy, elaborate and expensive, often employing multiple exotic and precious stone and wood inlays and intricate gold fabrication and settings, Charles Loloma’s jewelry pieces were much more simply pure, more powerfully and intensely focused. They were essentially artfully-conceived, beautifully-textured, skillfully-formed elegant Modern silver sculptures exactly like this precious tufa-cast silver bracelet and the other examples below.

Above and below, several other examples of early Charles Loloma cast silver jewelry, c. 1956-1965.

Above, two original 1994 photographs of this bracelet taken by Fine Arts of the Southwest in Santa Fe.

“Charles used tufa-casting to take the contrasts of Hopi overlay a step further. He cast in molds that were deliberately left rough and achieved a dramatic effect by polishing the finished piece selectively  and allowing much of the rough texture to remain. The combination of light, highly-polished areas with darkly-oxidized pebbled areas gave his jewelry a sculptural quality.”

-Quotation source and © Martha H. Struver, “Loloma, Beauty is his Name” Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005, pp.14

Charles Loloma at work in his Hopi cornfield, c. 1975.