Native American Photography

"The Divers", by famed photographer George Hoyningen-Huene, c. 1930, printed later. Unsigned. Seemingly shot on the French Riviera, the grand make-believe and glamour of this famous ...

Sepia photogravure titled "Atsina War-Party" depicting Native Americans on their horses over-looking the grasslands in the distance. The photogravure is titled in plate lower left "A...

Edward S Curtis (1868-1952) Title: As It Was In The Old Days Plate: 652 Portfolio: Volume 19 Printer: Suffolk Eng. Co. Cambridge Mass Medium: Photogravure Date: 1927 Dimensions: S...

Sepia photogravure titled "Spotted Elk - Brule" depicting a portrait of Spotted Elk from the Brule tribe. The photogravure is titled lower left "Spotted Elk - Brule". Printed under t...

A rare early B & W orig photograph from Bruce Bellas. This tasteful nude is a horizontal image of a handsome blond male model. The verso has the early stamp with PO Box in Los Angele...

Edward S Curtis (1868-1952) Title: Autumn - Apsaroke Plate: 130 Portfolio: Volume IV Printer: John Andrew & Son Medium: Photogravure Date: 1908 Edwar...

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 "Cree Boatwomen" depicting Native American women in boat on a lake. The photogravure is titled lower left "Cree Boatwomen". Printed under the photogravure "...

Eugene Atget (French, 1857-1927) Verrieres, vieux logis, 1922. Albumen silver print. printing out paper print from glass negative. verso right side sta...

Edward S Curtis (1868-1952) Title: Kutenai Girls Plate: 253 Portfolio: Volume 16 Printer: John Andrew & Son Medium: Photogravure Date: 1910 Dimension...

Brassai's Insight: Photogravure of Picasso's Sculpture, circa 1948 From 1948 Photography by Brassai Photogravure From 'The Sculptures of Picasso...

Title: Gabrielle Coco Chanel Print: Platinum palladium print, printed on Strathmore cotton paper Date: circa 1937 Signature: Signed Horst in Pencil on Recto and Vesrso Created at the height of her fame this is one of the most beautiful photographs of Coco Chanel in which Horst reveals her gentler side. Horst's arrangement of the furnishings, fabrics and lighting creates...