Charles Loloma was born in 1921 in the small village of Houtville on the Navajo reservation (at the junction of the American states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah). He belonged to the Hopi Indian tribe, one of the indigenous North American peoples. Charles’s father was a weaver, his mother a basket weaver. The boy began to show interest in creativity quite early and entered the Indigenous School in Phoenix (Arizona) to study traditional crafts. Even during his studies, he attracted the attention of teachers as one of the most artistically gifted students. Already at the age of 16, he was hired as a decorative artist to design the interiors of the New York Museum of Modern Art.
After graduating from university as a sculptor and ceramicist, Charles Loloma returned to Arizona, where he opened a ceramics store. He and his wife made all the products themselves.
Although he was an excellent potter and artist, he found his true passion in jewelry making.
Although the Hopi and Navajo Indians made their jewelry long before Columbus arrived in the New World, they did not work with silver and gold until the Spaniards came to their land. From the Spaniards and Mexicans, the Indians learned the art of making products from precious metals. Before this time, Indian jewelry often consisted of beads in a mosaic pattern on wood, bone, or leather. Beads, according to archaeological finds, were made from lapis lazuli, turquoise and coral. The Indians knew well the technology of drilling and grinding stone. Small beads were strung on animal tendons and entire compositions were made from them. Only in the second half of the 19th century did the Indians begin to make jewelry from silver and gold.
At first, silver here was not mined from the depths of the earth, but was processed from coins, silver sheets and silver wire. The point was not only and not so much in technical difficulties, but in the fact that the whites had long laid their paw on all the subsoil and mineral deposits. Navajo jewelers used Mexican pesos and American dollars as raw materials, and when they were prohibited from doing so, they began to buy bars and bars from resellers. Typically, Navajo silver items were made from a single piece of metal and were quite large and massive, and if they were studded with pieces of turquoise, they looked even more impressive.
Charles Loloma, who received a very good artistic education, both well-versed in the traditional crafts of his people and familiar with the world of modern Western design, showed the world the traditional jewelry of his people in a new way.
He began making jewelry from silver and gold with natural stones set tightly together. This is how he managed to combine the aesthetics of modern jewelry and traditional Indian jewelry.
And although at first his products were condemned by the Indians as “not Indian,” he quickly became known to a wide circle. In 1962, Charles Loloma was invited first as a teacher and later as director of the sculpture department at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe (New Mexico).
Over time, Loloma achieved recognition throughout the world. He won first prize at the National Indian Art Exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, for seven years in a row. He had two solo exhibitions in Paris, and even the Queen of Denmark ordered jewelry from him for herself. His achievements have inspired many small indigenous jewelers.
In the 1970s, many fashion designers such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, clearly inspired by Loloma, incorporated indigenous American aesthetics into their clothing collections. And so, ironically, early in Loloma’s career, critics told him that his art was not “Indian enough”; but when his vision was transformed and imported into the world of fashion, it became the quintessential embodiment of Native American heritage.
Although Charles Loloma died in 1991, he continues to be an inspiration to many Native American artists, designers and artisans. And jewelry (bracelets, rings, cufflinks, brooches, etc.), made in the style presented to the world by Charles Loloma, is still called in one word – “Loloma”.
