Harry Bert (Hopi, Third Mesa) "White Corn" Carved Cottonwood Root Maiden

A tall, stylized maiden carved from a single piece of cottonwood root and finished in hand-applied earth-tone pigments, signed Harry Bert on the underside and titled "White Corn" in the artist's hand. The figure stands with her long black-and-umber hair flowing down her back to the hem of her manta, framing a serene face rendered in the abstracted, slit-eyed convention of Hopi carved figures. Her shoulders are draped in a deep red manta bordered with stepped black-and-white terrace motifs — cloud, rain, and mountain symbols drawn from the Hopi visual vocabulary — and at her throat she wears a multi-strand turquoise heishi necklace with a carved white shell pendant.

At the center of the manta, framed like an offering, is a single ear of white corn flanked by stepped cross motifs — the namesake of the piece and a direct reference to corn as life-giver in Hopi cosmology. The reverse carries a four-directional stepped cross above a tiered terrace pattern, painted in the same red, ochre, and black palette. The sculpture rises from a natural live-edge cottonwood base that preserves the grain and character of the original root. An old $250 price tag remains affixed to the underside, suggesting earlier gallery or trading-post provenance.

Harry Bert is a Hopi carver from Third Mesa, the westernmost of the Hopi mesas in northeastern Arizona and home to the villages of Oraibi, Hotevilla, and Bacavi — communities with the longest continuous carving traditions on the mesa system. Third Mesa carvers are known for work rooted in traditional Hopi spiritual iconography, and the imagery here — white corn, stepped terrace borders, four-directional cross, turquoise heishi — is firmly within that canon. The cottonwood root medium is the traditional material of Hopi katsina and figure carving, chosen for its workability and its ceremonial associations.

CONDITION

Very Good. Paintwork is crisp and intact throughout with strong pigment saturation. The cottonwood root base retains its natural character including grain checks and bark inclusions consistent with the medium. Original artist signature and title legible on the underside; old price tag still adhered.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall: 14¼" H × 3¼" W × 3" D
• Material: Cottonwood root, hand-carved and hand-painted
• Artist: Harry Bert, Hopi, Third Mesa
• Signed: Harry Bert (underside)
• Titled: "White Corn" (underside)
• Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale — Not Included