The Red Olla

     Sharp had a very special female model named Crucita. That Taos Pueblo woman sat for him countless times, and at his annual exhibitions in the late teens and twenties, visitors could always find at least one depiction of Crucita on canvas. In Sharp’s paintings of Crucita, she is often seated on a banco silhouetted against a variegated adobe wall and reaching out with one or both hands to touch a ceramic pot or an elegant piece of cloth.           

 

     In this version, The Red Olla, Sharp presented Crucita in a combined gesture as she holds a peach-colored fabric and touches a red-glazed olla. As in most of these depictions, Crucita appears contemplative, if not expressionless. Yet, she seems to be organizing a composition of her own, arranging colors and shapes that would be pleasing to her own eye and aesthetic sensibilities. This version is also brighter than most, with the backdrop adobe wall tinted with streaks of robin’s-egg blue and a composition that enjoys an overall heightened illumination. A reviewer, Mary Alexander, for the Cincinnati Times-Star wrote that the painting "nearly haunts one and its arrangement and harmony of line are almost Whistleresque in its statement." (1/20/18) The Red Olla was exhibited along with another, apparently unique and much prized, depiction of Crucita titled The Wedding Dress in which his famous model agreed to let her hair down. (related image 211b)

 

Peter H. Hassrick