From 1900 to 1930 the American photographer, Edward Sheriff Curtis traveled and lived among more than eighty indigenous tribal groups west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. His photographs captured their authentic ways of life producing 40,000 extremely fragile glass plate negatives that were often damaged, 10,000 wax cylinders of recordings and 4,000 pages of anthropological text. From his dedicated efforts culminated the publication of The North American Indian. This publication consists of twenty volumes of text each containing seventy-five small hand-pulled photogravures and twenty portfolios with thirty-six large format hand-pulled photogravures to accompany each volume. This is the most extensive and expensive photographic project ever undertaken in the history of photography.
For thirty years Curtis would pack his cameras and supplies needed for months traveling by foot and by horses with covered wagons deep into Indian territories. His personal reputation and relationship within each tribe was a trusted one and his respect for them was legendary and they called him “The Shadow Catcher.” Curtis worked out of the belief that Native Americans were “a vanishing race” that desperately needed to be documented before “white” expansion and the Federal Government destroyed what remained of their native ways of life. With the backing of men like J. Pierpont Morgan and President Theodore Roosevelt and at great expense to his family life and his health, Curtis’s calling and dedication never ceased. He lived among dozens of tribes and devoted his life to definitive and monumental work The North American Indian. The New York Herald hailed it as “The most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the King James Bible.” We are living in a time in history when our humanity can seem all but lost, which makes this body of work all the more poignant. Kiowa novelist M. Scott Momaday wrote, "...Never before have we seen the Indians of North America so close to the origins of their humanity ... Curtis’ photographs comprehend indispensable images of every human being at every time, in every place.”
All Images depict Photogravures from the first twelve portfolios of The North American Indian. This Tweedweave Edition is one of seventeen rare sets printed by Master Printmaker Deli Sacilotto in 1966. Each large format photogravure measures 22 x 17 1/2 inches, Framed: 25 x 20 1/2 inches
SOLD - Bread - Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 121, Volume IV
Shot in the Hand – Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 188, Volume IV
SOLD - The Sun Dancer, 1907 Plate 83, Volume III
SOLD - Slow Bull – Ogalala, 1907 Plate 84, Volume III
Walpi, 1907 Plate 410, Volume XII
Evening in Hopi Land, 1906 Plate 407, Volume XII
Going to Camp – Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 126, Volume IV
SOLD - The Medicine Man, 1907 Plate 76, Volume III
On the Housetop, 1921 Plate 409, Volume XII
Nespilim Girl, 1905 Plate 246, Volume VII
Red Wing – Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 120, Volume IV
Masked Dancers – Qagyuhl, 1914 Plate 358, Volume X
The Wedding Party – Qagyuhl, 1914 Plate 344, Volume X
Evening on Puget Sound Plate 312, Volume IV
Fast Elk, 1907 Plate 92, Volume III
Bull Chief – Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 128, Volume 4
SOLD - Arikara Girl, 1908 Plate 168, Volume V
Fish Shows – Apsaroke, 1908 Plate 135, Volume IV
SOLD - Brule War – Party Plate 85, Volume III
Puget Sound Basket, 1912 Plate 309, Volume IV
The Potter Mixing Clay, 1921 Plate 419, Volume XII
Baker Schorr has a large selection of Edward Sheriff Curtis photogravures available in our inventory, The Shadow Catcher: Edward Sheriff Curtis and The North American Indian. Please visit the gallery or contact info@bakerschorrfineart.com with inquiries or to request price lists.