The accomplishments of Kenneth Milton Chapman (1875-1968)—a leading force in the revitalization of Pueblo pottery in the 1920s—are as varied as they are significant. Chapman was instrumental in the establishment of the Museum of New Mexico, the School of American Research, and the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe. He was widely recognized for his knowledge of Pueblo pottery design elements and was the University of New Mexico's first professor of Indian arts.
With a special focus on his professional development as artist and archaeologist, this biography is the first to track Chapman's life from his midwestern upbringing through his nearly seventy years in New Mexico. The authors—Chapman a grandniece and Barrie a relation by marriage—have combined material from Chapman's unpublished memoirs with a thoroughly researched history of his life and times to reveal his role within the burgeoning field of Southwestern archaeology and the preservation of ancient Pueblo pottery, as well as his promotion of the work of living potters.