For a century and a half — from roughly AD 1000 to 1150 — the Mimbres people of the prehistoric American Southwest painted bowls that rank among the most extraordinary figurative art ever produced in the ancient Americas. Then they vanished, leaving their painted pottery as the most vivid testimony to a world we can only begin to imagine.
Mimbres Classic Mysteries brings that world into focus. Industrial designer Tom Steinbach spent years studying Classic Mimbres ceramics, and in this beautifully produced volume he presents 75 digitally rendered interpretations of the culture’s most compelling figurative designs: hunters, insects, birds, fish, and ceremonial figures rendered in the bold, graphic black-and-white vocabulary that makes Mimbres art instantly recognizable and endlessly fascinating.
Unlike most Mimbres publications, which rely on photographs of painstakingly reconstructed pot shards, Steinbach’s digital renderings restore the clarity and visual punch of the original designs, allowing readers to engage with the imagery on its own terms. His analysis goes beyond aesthetics, using the designs as evidence to reconstruct aspects of Mimbres daily life, cosmology, and natural environment.
An essential reference for collectors, scholars, and anyone captivated by the art of the ancient Southwest.
