Edward Sheriff Curtis

"Spearing Salmon: Spokan", Sepia Photograph of Indigenous Spearfishing

1974

Two Early Massachusetts Paintings Boy fishing "Beaver Pool" - "The Conway" 1897 Pair of early Massachusetts paintings on walnut wood pane...

An incredible photo-realist drypoint etching of a Native American man by Gilbert Adam Shoenbrod (American, 1903-1996), 1937. Titled "The Hunter", this hyper detailed portrait depicts...

"Conquering The Wilderness" - Lewis and Clark Expedition Original Etching Original 1932 black and white etching titled "Conquering The Wilderness" by Robert Hogg Nisbet (American, ...

Beautiful black & white landscape photograph of forest trees and stream in the woods of Alaska, by Anchorage-based nature photographer George Provost (American, 20th Century). Hand signed and dated "George Provost 1989" lower right. Photograph is hand made from an 8x10 camera negative in a traditional "wet" darkroom, by the photographer. Mounted on white mat board. Unframed. Image size: 19"H x 15"W. Born in California, Provost grew up in the Bay Area. He has lived and worked in Alaska since 1987, specializing in large format, fine art, black and white photography. His work has been exhibited in over 60 exhibitions, received numerous awards, and is included in hundreds of collections, both public and private. George Provost was an Isle Royale...

Sepia photogravure titled "On the Pend d'Oreille - Kalispel" depicting native figures in canoes on the water, more than likely the Pend D'Oreille River in areas that encompassed land...

Sepia photogravure titled "Tsipiai - Sia" depicting native women engaged in pottery making. The photogravure is titled lower left "Tsipiai - Sia". Printed under the photogravure "Fro...

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...

Sepia photogravure titled "Kalispel Camp" depicting native figures in the foreground with kayak and teepee and rolling hills in the distance. The photogravure is titled lower left "K...