EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS
AMERICAN, 1868-1952
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.”
AMERICAN, 1868-1952
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
Baker Schorr has a large selection of Edward Sheriff Curtis photogravures available in our inventory and featured in our current exhibition, The Shadow Catcher: Edward Sheriff Curtis and The North American Indian. Please visit the gallery or contact kathryn@bakerschorrfineart.com with inquiries or to request price lists.
Baker Schorr has a large selection of Edward Sheriff Curtis photogravures available in our inventory and featured in our current exhibition, The Shadow Catcher: Edward Sheriff Curtis and The North American Indian. Please visit the gallery or contact kathryn@bakerschorrfineart.com with inquiries or to request price lists.
The Medicine Man, 1907
Plate 76, Volume III |
Arikara Girl, 1908
Plate 165, Volume V |
Bread – Apsaroke, 1908
Plate 121, Volume IV |
Dancing to Restore and Eclipsed Moon- Qagyuhl, 1914
Plate 355, Volume X |
Evening in Hopi Land, 1906
Plate 407, Volume XII |
Baker Schorr has a large selection of Edward Sheriff Curtis photogravures available in our inventory and featured in our current exhibition, The Shadow Catcher: Edward Sheriff Curtis and The North American Indian. Please visit the gallery or contact kathryn@bakerschorrfineart.com with inquiries or to request price lists.