John Leekity Silver Cylinder with Knife Wing Man
Artist: John Leekity, Zuni (aka John Gordon Leak) (1900-1970)
Dimensions: 4 1/4″ x 3”
Tribe: Navajo/ Zuni
Stone: Multi-stone
Material: Silver
Price:Not For Sale
As seen in Elegant Vessels: A century of southwest silver boxes (Page 57)
This box is mounted with a mosaic Knife Wing Man surrounded by a black background of local jet. Identified by C. G. Wallace in the 1975 Sotheby Park Bernet auction catalog as the work of John Gordon Leak, the attribution have been maintained, even though it is incorrect. The late scholar and investigator of Zuni jewelry, Ernie Bulow, discovered that the artist’s real name was John Leekity (Bulow 2014). Nor was Leekity that sole producer of this style of work, as the variations in manufacture reveal.
