Helen Elaine Talle Collection
Map Showing Origin of Pottery
The Helen Elaine Talle Collection of pre-Columbian art from Mexico, was
given to Luther College in her memory by her daughters, Dr. Patricia Crown,
Katherine Crown Webster, and Haine Talle Crown in 1988. Over the years
of Luther’s history, the family connection to the College has been
especially strong. Helen Elaine Talle attended Luther from 1938-1941.
Keith Crown, Helen Elaine Talle’s former husband, was a faculty member
at Luther (1940-1941) and gave the College an original silk screen print
which he made for the Messiah in 1941. Helen Elaine Talle’s father,
Henry O. Talle, LC ’17, also had taught at Luther (economics) from
1921-1938, served as college treasurer from 1932-1938 and was a U.S. Congressman
from the second Iowa district. Several other family members also graduated
from Luther.
The 21 pieces in the Helen Elaine Talle Collection were collected in the
early 1950’s by Keith Crown during visits to Mexico. He purchased
the ceramics in Acombro, Mexico, a small village about 60 miles north
of Morelia. The area contains several important sites of the Chupicuaro,
a sub-group of the Tarascans who lived on the western edge of the Aztec
nation. Construction of the Solis Dam in 1949 flooded much of the land
and forced existing villages to relocate to a new site down-river which
they named Chupicuaro Nuevo. Many sites were hastily excavated by local
families prior to the flooding. The pieces in the collection include bowls
in various shapes including zoomorphic shapes as well as figures which
depict people and animals.
The term Chupicuaro refers to the culture and peoples geographically defined
by the land immediately associated with the village of the same name located
in the heart of present day Mexico, northwest of Mexico City, along the
Lerma River. Activity flourished in the area during the late Pre-Classic
and Terminal Classic periods, roughly 300 BCE – 200 CE, during which
time these pieces were made.
Ceramics from Chupicuaro are widely admired for their consistent craftsmanship.
Pieces commonly display thick walls, which lent a functional durability
to the wares. The clay body, or paste, is uniformly brown in color and
quite coarse, and firings were done at moderate temperatures. Pottery
pieces are broadly divided into black wares and red (or painted) wares,
and are characterized by the standardization of vessel shapes, designs,
and motifs. Clay figurines were also hand-modeled, and were typically
decorated on the front only. Attention generally centered on the head
in both modeling and decorating, a common feature on figurines made throughout
Meso-America at that time.
The Helen Elaine Talle Collection is one of three major groupings of pre-Columbian
ceramics in the Fine Arts Collection. Others include pieces collected
and purchased by Luther College students in Panama in 1969, and a group
of primarily Mayan works from Guatemala, received by the College in 1986
from the Marguerite Wildenhain estate.
Ref: Fine Arts Collection files; Anton, Ferdinand. Pre-Columbian Art
and Later Indian Tribal Arts. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1968;
Franch, Jose Alcina. Pre-Columbian Art. New York, NY: Harry N.
Abrams, 1978; 1983.
Helen Elaine Talle Collection: 1
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Updated
11/10/2003
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