Pueblo Bead Jewelry

The bead played a vital role in Pueblo Indian jewelry design, and its influence continues today in modernist American design. In these pages, featuring more than 250 breathtaking photos, renowned art expert Paula A. Baxter integrates her decades of research with updated findings.



Beads were made in the prehistoric American Southwest by the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians, and survived into the historic era. Bead jewelry creations in shell, stone, and silver are important in the Native American jewelry marketplace. This book revisits some leading misconceptions about Pueblo jewelry-making in the existing literature. A survey of modern Pueblo jewelry innovation confirms that its design is second to none, and discusses how Pueblo design meshed with American mid-century modernist expression. Today's Pueblo jewelers, also featured here, continue to offer invention and originality.