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Original Edward S. Curtis Photogravure, "The Klamath Hunter" 1923
About the Item
Presented is a beautiful photogravure showing a Klamath man hunting from a dugout canoe. This image is Plate 458 from Volume 13 of Edward Curtis' epic project The North American Indian. The photogravure was published in 1923 by Suffolk Engr. Co., in Cambridge, MA. The Klamath people are from the inland region of Northern California and Southern Oregon. Their oral history records the volcanic eruption that created Crater Lake over 7000 years ago
Edward S. Curtis created one of the most enduring and iconic visual records in the history of the photographic medium. He was an award-winning artist, a consummate craftsman, a visionary, an intrepid entrepreneur, and was highly regarded as a respected ethnographer and publisher.
Curtis began photographing Native Americans in the mid-1890s and selling these images in his successful downtown Seattle studio. One of his earliest models was Princess Angeline, the aged daughter of chief Sealth, the Suquamish Indian after whom Seattle is named. At the National Photographic Convention of 1899 Curtis was awarded the grand prize for three of his soft-focused, sepia-toned images of Puget Sound Native Americans: Evening on the Sound, The Clam Digger, and The Mussel Gatherer.
Curtis spent the summer of 1900 with George Bird Grinnell observing the Sun Dance at an encampment of Blood, Blackfeet, and Algonquin in Montana. This was a pivotal experience for Curtis, confirming his desire to study and photograph the Native tribes of North America. A trip to visit the Hopi reservation in Arizona a few months later further fueled his enthusiasm.
Curtis envisioned a plan to create a massive scholarly and artistic work that would document the tribes west of the Mississippi, their ceremonies, beliefs, daily life, and landscapes. In 1906, Curtis approached railroad tycoon J.P. Morgan to request financial assistance for his project. Morgan agreed to pay him a total of $75,000, or $15,000 a year for five years. Morgan and Curtis decided that Curtis' masterwork, The North American Indian, would be a set of 20 volumes of ethnographic text illustrated with high quality photoengravings taken from his glass plate negatives. Each of these volumes would be accompanied by a portfolio of large size images, all sumptuously bound in Moroccan leather. The papers used for printing would also be of the best quality: a Dutch etching stock by Van Gelder, a Japanese vellum, and for the most discerning subscribers, a translucent Japanese tissue paper. To fund publication, Curtis would sell subscriptions at approximately $3,000 per set, with a total of 500 sets to be published.
An ambitious and extensive project, Curtis spent much of his life documenting as many Native tribes as possible. The importance and the urgency of the task was clear to him, as he wrote in the introduction to his first volume of The North American Indians in 1907, "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost." In 1930, some 24 years after his initial request for funding, the last two volumes, Vol. 19 and Vol. 20, were published and The North American Indian project was finally completed. Curtis took over 40,000 photographs and made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings to detail the lives, languages, and beliefs of over 80 different tribes.
Curtis co-created this unparalleled artistic, anthropological record with an estimated 10,000 Native participants. His work changed the way an entire nation viewed Native Americans. He accomplished this at a time when some individuals were actively advocating for the continued relocation of numerous tribes. Today, many Native people and their tribes find Curtis’ work an invaluable source for cultural and linguistic revivification.
CONDITION:
Good condition. Photogravure. Unframed. Image size: 17.8" H x 21.8"W.
- Creator:Edward S. Curtis, 1868-1952 (Photographer)
- Dimensions:Height: 17.8 in (45.22 cm)Width: 21.8 in (55.38 cm)Depth: 0.01 in (0.26 mm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1923
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use. Good condition. Photogravure. Unframed.
- Seller Location:Colorado Springs, CO
- Reference Number:
Edward S. Curtis, 1868-1952
Edward S. Curtis is arguably the most influential photographer of the American West. His work unquestionably ranks among that of the most important photographers of the 20th century.
Curtis was first and foremost; an extremely gifted and sophisticated artist whose work had the duality of being an incredible artistic creation at the same time as being a document of a people. He was uniquely able to create, out of whole cloth, a lasting vision of the American Indian that never existed before it was first seen through his photographic lens.
Edward Curtis produced images of the American Indian that convey a dignity, a universal humanity and a certain remaining majesty that transcend literally all other work ever done on the subject. In his photographs we see images that are uniquely able to stand alone in the world of photography.
Beginning in 1898 and continuing through 1928, Curtis dedicated his life to documenting the traditional lifeways and cultures of 128 American Indian tribes living west of the Mississippi River, from Alaska to the Mexican border.
Curtis was a genius of an artist possessed by a singular obsession to preserve the traditional lifeways of the American Indian.
Astonishingly, focusing all his immense talents over a staggering 30-year period, Curtis accomplished what he set out to do; he did save the traditional lifeways of these Native Peoples but at tremendous personal cost. It cost him his marriage, it cost him his health, and it cost him any possible financial stability he might ever have had.
In spite of all this, he persevered and left a body of work never to be equaled in the field of photography.
Find authentic Edward S. Curtis photography on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Bruce Kapson Gallery)
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