FREDERICK MONSEN Nampeo [Nampeyo], the artist-potter of the Hopi people, arranging pottery for firing, Hano, First Mesa, Arizona, ca. 1900s, 13.5x19.5" Gelatin Silver Print. Signed in image lower right. Credit Hunting Library for title/description. ASG# FM/1247

Nampeyo was the legendary Hopi potter who used prehistoric pottery designs to reinvigorate the then contemporary designs on Hopi Pottery.

Frederick Monsen (b. 1865, Bergen Norway; d. 1929) moved to Salt Lake City with his family in 1868. His father was a photographer and he trained as a painter. By 1886 Monsen was avidly, if unofficially, photographing in the Southwest with the U.S. Geological (Mexican American Boundary) Survey. He photographed with Generals Crook and Miles at the end of the campaign against the Apaches in 1886, the Brown Stanton Survey (1889-1890), the Salton Sea Expedition (1891), Death Valley and other California Deserts (1893), Southwestern Indians (1894 - 1911) and the Yosemite National Park Boundary Survey (1896). A colleague of Adam Clark Vroman and Arnold Genthe, Monsen favored a handheld Kodak camera, which allowed him to photograph his subjects in candid rather than posed pictures. In 1906, his studio and negatives were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. To reconstruct his images after the loss he made copy negatives and borrowed negatives from Vroman and others.

Very Good. Mild wear. Corner edge wear, tears.