Gachupin, Helen

The daughter of Jose Gachupin and Andrea Toribio Gachupin, Helen Gachupin was born at Zia Pueblo in 1931. Helen most likely grew up watching her famous grandmother, Rosalie Medina Toribio, making pottery but she said really learned the basics of the traditional art from her mother.

Throughout her career Helen mostly made traditional polychrome jars, storage ollas and bowls. Her favorite designs seem to have been part of the traditional Zia design palette: roadrunners, yucca plants, rainbows and rainbirds.

Helen and her sister, Gloria Gachupin Chinana, were among the participants in the 1979 “One Space/Three Dimensions” exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum. Some of Helen’s pieces can be found in the collections at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in Boston, the Maxwell Museum in Albuquerque and the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe.

Helen never married before she passed on in 1992.