Joe H. Quintana — Cochiti Pueblo Silversmith & His Hallmarks
Joe H. Quintana. Cochiti Pueblo, 1915–1991. He came home from the shipyards and made the finest silver Cochiti had seen.
Some smiths inherit the craft. Joe H. Quintana arrived at it the long way — through a World War II shipyard, where he welded steel before he ever raised silver. When he came back to Cochiti Pueblo, he brought a metalworker's precision to a pueblo better known for pottery than for silver, and became, by the reckoning of the scholars who recorded him, its finest silversmith.
The Marks
Quintana signed with "JHQ" in block letters — sometimes alone, sometimes over "COCHITI N M," and on some pieces beneath a small decorative arc. Three variants are photographed in the hallmark record, and the dealer house Adobe Gallery corroborates both the initials and the fuller "JHQUINTANA COCHITI NM." There is a rarer authentication here than a stamp, though: his actual physical dies passed to his son, the silversmith Cippy Crazyhorse, who has said so in his own words — so the Quintana mark did not die with the man who cut it.
The Smith
He was born in 1915 at Cochiti Pueblo, worked as a shipyard welder through the war, and returned home to take up silver. When the ethnologist John Adair surveyed Southwest silversmithing for his foundational 1944 study, he named Quintana by name among the top Cochiti smiths — a rare contemporary citation that fixes his standing while he was still at the bench.
The Work
Quintana's conchos are the thing to hold. He raised a domed repoussé center, ringed it with a carved rope-twist outline, and stamped sun-ray work edge to edge — a full, deliberate surface with nothing left flat. A Quintana concho belt typically runs eight conchos, each one built to that same architecture. It is silver made the patient way: raised, carved, and stamped rather than cast and finished.
The Standing
In 2004 the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe exhibited more than six hundred pieces from the Irma Bailey collection of his work, with a companion book, Master in Metal — a retrospective on a scale few pueblo smiths receive. (A "SWAIA Joe H. Quintana Memorial Award" is named by some dealers; we could not confirm it in SWAIA's own records, so we note it as claimed, not established.) His clearest legacy is a living one: the stamps, the standard, and the son who carries both.
Know more about Joe? Contact T.Skies.
- Mateo’s notes, July 2026 — John Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944); hallmark images at art-amerindien.com; Adobe Gallery; MIAC Master in Metal (2004, Irma Bailey collection).
- Cross-reference: Cippy Crazyhorse — his son, who inherited Quintana's physical stamps. Primary-source authentication link.
From the Library: Schiffer, Turquoise Jewelry (2008)
2008 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2008, not today.
Schiffer (2008, p. 51) illustrated a rectangular silver buckle with a small triangular turquoise stone by Joseph H. Quintana, Cochiti, circa 1980s. [1]
From the Library: Bedinger, Indian Silver (1973)
1973 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1973, not today.
Bedinger (1973), summarizing Adair's fieldwork at Cochiti, recorded:
“One of the most successful was Joe Quintana, who earned $1,000 in 1939 by working nine to ten hours a day.”
— Bedinger (1973), p. 176 [2]
From the Library: Ryan & Chambless, Turquoise in America Part Two: 1910–1990 (2020)
2020 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2020, not today.
Cippy Crazyhorse recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 158), that his father, Joe H. Quintana, welded war-damaged ships in California shipyards during World War II, came home to run his own welding garage, and learned silversmithing when he was hired at Julius Gans's Southwest Indian Arts and Crafts in Santa Fe. [3]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 157), quoting John Adair, Quintana was one of five Cochiti smiths doing home work for Julius Gans, earning $14 to $17 a week and about $1,000 in the year, working nine to ten hours a day at a bench and with materials Gans supplied. [3]
Cippy Crazyhorse recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 159), that his father also studied under Frank Patania Sr., then set out on his own with his wife Teresita's designs, which is how the JHQ mark was born, selling mostly in Santa Fe, Gallup and Taos. [3]
Cippy Crazyhorse recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 159), that his mother, Teresita, designed his father's work and bought stones at Zachary's in Albuquerque, which had the best Number 8 spider web, Blue Gem and Bisbee, sketching each piece around its stone. [3]
Cippy Crazyhorse recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 160), that in the early 1960s his father worked for Manny Goodman at The Covered Wagon in Albuquerque's Old Town and then for Irma Bailey, who let him make whatever he wanted, including a concho belt that, by Irma Bailey's telling, Jim Morrison bought. [3]
From the Library: Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944)
1944 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1944, not today.
In his 1940 survey, Adair (1944) found five Cochiti smiths working for a Santa Fe company, and wrote:
“Joe Quintana is one of the most successful of these smiths. He reported that he had made $1,000 from working silver during the last year, working at his bench from nine to ten hours a day.”
— Adair (1944), p. 208 [4]
From the Library: Schaaf, American Indian Jewelry I (2003)
2003 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2003, not today.
Schaaf (2003, p. 267) recorded Joe H. Quintana, who lived from about 1915 to 1991, as a Cochiti smith stamping J.H.Q., the father and teacher of Cippy Crazyhorse, with the School of American Research Prize for Excellence in Traditional Design in Jewelry in 1970, a third prize for a pendant with stones at Indian Market in 1976, and his work in the Joe Ben Wheat Collection at the University of Colorado. [5]
Schaaf (2003, p. 267) cited John Adair's report that in late 1944 Joe H. Quintana was one of five Cochiti silversmiths doing benchwork in Santa Fe, working nine to ten hours a day. [5]
Field Notes by Mateo James
Our biography tells Joe Quintana's story as a postwar one, with silver taken up after shipyard welding. Bedinger, drawing on Adair's fieldwork, already counts him among Cochiti's most successful smiths in 1939, before the war. I note the two timelines here rather than choose between them.
Sources
- Schiffer, Nancy N. Turquoise Jewelry. Revised 4th ed. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2008. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2008.
- Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1973.
- Ryan, Mike, II, and Philip Chambless. Turquoise in America, Part Two: 1910–1990. Callais Press, 2020. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2020.
- Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. The Civilization of the American Indian Series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1944.
- Schaaf, Gregory, with Angie Yan Schaaf. American Indian Jewelry I: 1,200 Artist Biographies, ca. 1800-present. American Indian Art Series, Vol. 5. Santa Fe: CIAC Press, 2003. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2003.
This profile is maintained in support of Native American silversmiths and compiled from published references. See something inaccurate, or want to add to it? Contact us.