Edward S. Curtis
Encyclopedia
Edward Sheriff Curtis was a photographer of the American West and of Native American
peoples.
. Curtis' father, the Reverend Johnson Asahel Curtis (1840–1887), was a minister and an American Civil War
veteran
. Rev. Curtis was born in Ohio
. Rev. Curtis' father was born in Canada
, and his mother in Vermont
. Edward's mother, Ellen Sheriff (1844–1912), was born in Pennsylvania
; and both her parents were born in England
. Curtis' siblings were Raphael Curtis (1862-c1885), who also was called Ray Curtis; Eva Curtis (1870-?); and Asahel Curtis
(1875–1941).,.
Around 1874 the family moved from Wisconsin
to Minnesota
. Curtis dropped out of school in the sixth grade
. He soon built his own camera
. In 1880 the family lived in Cordova Township
, Minnesota, where Johnson Curtis worked as a retail
grocer
.
, where Edward purchased a new camera and became a partner in an existing photographic studio with Rasmus Rothi. Edward paid $150 for his 50 percent share in the studio. After about six months, Curtis left Rothi and formed a new partnership with Thomas Guptill. The new studio was called Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers.
. Her parents were from Canada
. Together they had four children: Harold Curtis (1893-?); Elizabeth M. (Beth) Curtis (1896–1973), who married Manford E. Magnuson (1895–1993); Florence Curtis (1899–1987) who married Henry Graybill (1893-?); and Katherine (Billy) Curtis (1909-?).
In 1896 the entire family moved to a new house in Seattle. The household then included Edward's mother, Ellen Sheriff; Edward's sister, Eva Curtis; Edward's brother, Asahel Curtis
; Clara's sisters, Susie and Nellie Phillips; and Nellie's son, William.
In 1895 Curtis met and photographed Princess Angeline
(c1800-1896) aka Kickisomlo, the daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle. This was to be his first portrait of a Native American
. In 1898 while photographing Mt. Rainier, Curtis came upon a small group of scientists. One of them was George Bird Grinnell
, an expert on Native Americans. Both Grinnell and Curtis were invited on the famous Harriman Alaska Expedition
in 1899. Grinnell became interested in Curtis' photography and invited him to join an expedition to photograph the Blackfeet Indians
in Montana in the year 1900.
In 1906 J.P. Morgan offered Curtis $3,000 to produce a series on the North American Indian. It was to be in 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs. Morgan was to receive 25 sets and 500 original prints as his method of repayment. 222 complete sets were eventually published. Curtis' goal was not just to photograph, but to document, as much American Indian (Native American) traditional life as possible before that way of life disappeared. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume 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." Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Indian language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images from over 80 tribes. He recorded tribal lore and history, and he described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs. He wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders, and his material, in most cases, is the only recorded history.
. In 1919 she was granted the divorce and received the Curtis' photographic studio
and all of his original camera negatives
as her part of the settlement. Edward went with his daughter, Beth, to the studio and destroyed all of his original glass negatives, rather than have them become the property of his ex-wife, Clara. Clara went on to manage the Curtis studio with her sister, Nellie M. Phillips (1880-?), who was married to Martin Lucus (1880-?). In 1920 Beth Curtis and her sister Florence Curtis were living in a boarding house
in Seattle. Clara was living in Charleston, Kitsap County, Washington
with her sister Nellie and her daughter Katherine Curtis.
with his daughter Beth, and opened a new photo studio. To earn money he worked as an assistant cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille
and was an uncredited assistant cameraman in the 1923 filming of The Ten Commandments
. On October 16, 1924 Curtis sold the rights to his ethnographic motion picture
In the Land of the Head-Hunters to the American Museum of Natural History
. He was paid $1,500 for the master print and the original camera negative. It had cost him over $20,000 to film.
to Seattle with his daughter Beth, he was arrested for failure to pay alimony
over the preceding 7 years. The total owed was $4,500, but the charges were dropped. For Christmas
of 1927, the family was reunited at daughter Florence's home in Medford, Oregon
. This was the first time since the divorce that Curtis was with all of his children at the same time, and it had been thirteen years since he had seen Katherine. In 1928, desperate for cash, Edward sold the rights to his project to J.P Morgan's son
. In 1930 he published the concluding volume of The North American Indian. In total about 280 sets were sold of his now completed opus magnum
. In 1930 his ex-wife, Clara, was still living in Seattle operating the photo studio with their daughter Katherine. His other daughter, Florence Curtis, was still living in Medford, Oregon with her husband Henry Graybill. After Clara died of heart failure in 1932, his daughter Katherine moved to California
to be closer to her father and her sister Beth.
sold the rights and remaining unpublished material to the Charles E. Lauriat Company in Boston
for $1,000 plus a percentage of any future royalties. This included 19 complete bound sets of The North American Indian, thousands of individual paper prints, the copper printing plates, the unbound printed pages, and the original glass-plate negatives. Lauriat bound the remaining loose printed pages and sold them with the completed sets. The remaining material remained untouched in the Lauriat basement
in Boston until they were rediscovered in 1972.
in the home of his daughter, Beth. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California
. His terse obituary
appeared in The New York Times
on October 20, 1952:
The Library of Congress
acquired these images through copyright deposit
from about 1900 through 1930. The dates on them reflect date of registration, not when the photographs were taken. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in the North American Indian volumes and therefore offer a different and unique glimpse into Curtis's work with indigenous cultures. The original glass plate negatives which had been stored and nearly forgotten in the basement of New York's Morgan Library
were dispersed during World War II
. Many others were destroyed and some were sold as junk.
went to Boston to search for Curtis' original copper plates and photogravure
s at the Charles E. Lauriat rare bookstore. He discovered almost 285,000 original photogravures as well as all the original copper plates. With Jack Loeffler and David Padwa, they jointly purchased all of the surviving Curtis material that was owned by Charles Emelius Lauriat (1874–1937). The collection was later purchased by another group of investors led by Mark Zaplin of Santa Fe. The Zaplin Group owned the plates until 1982, when they sold them to a California group led by Kenneth Zerbe, the current owner of the plates as of 2005.
purchased 110 prints that Curtis had made for his 1905-1906 exhibit and donated them to the Peabody Essex Museum
, where they remain. The 14" by 17" prints are each unique and remain in pristine condition. Clark Worswick, curator of photography for the museum, describes them as:
Curtis has been praised as a gifted photographer but also criticized by professional ethnologists for manipulating his images. Curtis' photographs have been charged with misrepresenting Native American people and cultures by portraying them in the popular notions and stereotypes of the times. Although the early twentieth century was a difficult time for most Native communities in America, not all natives were doomed to becoming a "vanishing race." At a time when natives' rights were being denied and their treaties were unrecognized by the federal government, many natives were successfully adapting to western society. By reinforcing the native identity as the noble savage
and a tragic vanishing race, some believe Curtis detracted attention from the true plight of American natives at the time when he was witnessing their squalid conditions on reservations first-hand and their attempt to find their place in Western culture and adapt to their changing world.
In many of his images Curtis removed parasols, suspenders, wagons, and other traces of Western material culture
from his pictures. In his photogravure In a Piegan Lodge, published in The North American Indian, Curtis retouched the image to remove a clock between the two men seated on the ground.
He also is known to have paid natives to pose in staged scenes, wear historically inaccurate dress and costumes, dance and partake in simulated ceremonies. In Curtis' picture Oglala War-Party, the image shows 10 Oglala
men wearing feather headdresses, on horseback riding down hill. The photo caption reads, "a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy's camp." In truth headdresses would have only been worn during special occasions and, in some tribes, only by the chief of the tribe. The photograph was taken in 1907 when natives had been relegated onto reservations and warring between tribes had ended. Curtis paid natives to pose as warriors at a time when they lived with little dignity, rights, and freedoms. It is therefore suggested that he altered and manipulated his pictures to create an ethnographic simulation of Native tribes untouched by Western society.
In fact, it is doubtful that Curtis did anything disreputable or intentionally misleading considering his lifelong dilligence to this art. His obvious intention was to showcase the American Indian in "their own element" as accurately as possible which provided the only credible motive to his removing Western materials, e.g. "a clock", from his photographs which were out of place anachronistically with "pure" Indian culture. The same motivation can be applied to costuming and posing of the native Americans which, contrary to his intention of exposé, gave the impression of idealism beyond his actual intention of realism, albeit euphemistic.
One of the more balanced reviews of The North American Indian comes from Mick Gidley, Emeritus Professor of American Literature
, at Leeds University, in England
, who has written a number of works related to the life of Edward S. Curtis:
"The North American Indian-extensively produced and issued in a severely limited edition-could not prove popular. But in recent years anthropologists and others, even when they have censured what they have assumed were Curtis' methodological assumptions or quarrelled with the text's conclusions, have begun to appreciate the value of the project's achievement: exhibitions have been mounted, anthologies of pictures have been published, and The North American Indian has increasingly been cited in the researches of others... The North American Indian is not monolithic or merely a monument. It is alive, it speaks, if with several voices, and among those perhaps mingled voices are those of otherwise silent or muted Indian individuals.”
Of the full Curtis opus N. Scott Momaday
says: “Taken as a whole, the work of Edward S. Curtis is a singular achievement. 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”
Don Gulbrandsen, who wrote Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of the First Americans, puts it this way in his introductory essay on Curtis’ life: “The faces stare out at you, images seemingly from an ancient time and from a place far, far away…Yet as you gaze at the faces the humanity becomes apparent, lives filled with dignity but also sadness and loss, representatives of a world that has all but disappeared from our planet.”
In Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis, Laurie Lawlor reveals that “many Native Americans Curtis photographed called him Shadow Catcher. But the images he captured were far more powerful than mere shadows. The men, women, and children in The North American Indian seem as alive to us today as they did when Curtis took their pictures in the early part of the twentieth century. Curtis respected the Indians he encountered and was willing to learn about their culture, religion and way of life. In return the Indians respected and trusted him.
When judged by the standards of his time, Curtis was far ahead of his contemporaries in sensitivity, tolerance, and openness to Native American cultures and ways of thinking.”
Theodore Roosevelt, who was one of Curtis' contemporaries and one of his most strident supporters, wrote the following comments in the foreword to Volume I of The North American Indian:
"In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose work has far more than mere accuracy, because it is truthful. …because of his extraordinary success in making and using his opportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as far as we can see, no other man could do. Mr. Curtis in publishing this book is rendering a real and great service; a service not only to our own people, but to the world of scholarship everywhere."
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
peoples.
Early life
Edward Curtis was born near Whitewater, WisconsinWhitewater, Wisconsin
Whitewater is a city in Jefferson and Walworth Counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located near the southern portion of the Kettle Moraine State Forest, Whitewater is the home of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater.-Geography:...
. Curtis' father, the Reverend Johnson Asahel Curtis (1840–1887), was a minister and an American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
. Rev. Curtis was born in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. Rev. Curtis' father was born in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and his mother in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. Edward's mother, Ellen Sheriff (1844–1912), was born in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
; and both her parents were born in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Curtis' siblings were Raphael Curtis (1862-c1885), who also was called Ray Curtis; Eva Curtis (1870-?); and Asahel Curtis
Asahel Curtis
Asahel Curtis was a Pacific Northwest photographer.-Birth:Asahel Curtis was born in 1874 in Minnesota to Johnson Asahel Curtis , a reverend; and Ellen Sheriff .-Parents and siblings:...
(1875–1941).,.
Around 1874 the family moved from Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
to Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Curtis dropped out of school in the sixth grade
Sixth grade
Sixth grade is a year of education in the United States and some other nations. The sixth grade is the sixth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 11 – 12 years old...
. He soon built his own camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
. In 1880 the family lived in Cordova Township
Cordova Township, Minnesota
Cordova Township is a township in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 517 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water.-Demographics:As of the census of 2000,...
, Minnesota, where Johnson Curtis worked as a retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
grocer
Grocer
A grocer is a bulk seller of food. Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, pepper, sugar, and cocoa, tea and coffee...
.
Early career
In 1885 at the age of seventeen Edward became an apprentice photographer in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1887 the family moved to Seattle, WashingtonSeattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, where Edward purchased a new camera and became a partner in an existing photographic studio with Rasmus Rothi. Edward paid $150 for his 50 percent share in the studio. After about six months, Curtis left Rothi and formed a new partnership with Thomas Guptill. The new studio was called Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers.
Marriage
In 1892 Edward married Clara J. Phillips (1874–1932), who was born in PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Her parents were from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Together they had four children: Harold Curtis (1893-?); Elizabeth M. (Beth) Curtis (1896–1973), who married Manford E. Magnuson (1895–1993); Florence Curtis (1899–1987) who married Henry Graybill (1893-?); and Katherine (Billy) Curtis (1909-?).
In 1896 the entire family moved to a new house in Seattle. The household then included Edward's mother, Ellen Sheriff; Edward's sister, Eva Curtis; Edward's brother, Asahel Curtis
Asahel Curtis
Asahel Curtis was a Pacific Northwest photographer.-Birth:Asahel Curtis was born in 1874 in Minnesota to Johnson Asahel Curtis , a reverend; and Ellen Sheriff .-Parents and siblings:...
; Clara's sisters, Susie and Nellie Phillips; and Nellie's son, William.
Middle career
Princess Angeline
Princess Angeline , also known in Lushootseed as Kikisoblu, Kick-is-om-lo, or Wewick, was the eldest daughter of Chief Seattle. Born in what is now Rainier Beach in Seattle, Washington, she was named Angeline by Catherine Broshears Maynard, second wife of Seattle pioneer Doc Maynard...
(c1800-1896) aka Kickisomlo, the daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle. This was to be his first portrait of a Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. In 1898 while photographing Mt. Rainier, Curtis came upon a small group of scientists. One of them was George Bird Grinnell
George Bird Grinnell
George Bird Grinnell was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1870 and a Ph.D. in 1880. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student...
, an expert on Native Americans. Both Grinnell and Curtis were invited on the famous Harriman Alaska Expedition
Harriman Alaska Expedition
In 1899, wealthy railroad magnate Edward Harriman arranged for a maritime expedition to Alaska. Harriman brought with him an elite community of scientists, artists, photographers, and naturalists to explore and document the Alaskan coast...
in 1899. Grinnell became interested in Curtis' photography and invited him to join an expedition to photograph the Blackfeet Indians
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
in Montana in the year 1900.
The North American Indian
Divorce
The family had moved to Seattle in 1910. On October 16, 1916, Clara filed for divorceDivorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
. In 1919 she was granted the divorce and received the Curtis' photographic studio
Photographic studio
A photographic studio is both a workspace and a corporate body. As a workspace it is much like an artist’s studio, but providing space to take, develop, print and duplicate photographs. Photographic training and the display of finished photographs may also be accommodated in a photographic studio...
and all of his original camera negatives
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...
as her part of the settlement. Edward went with his daughter, Beth, to the studio and destroyed all of his original glass negatives, rather than have them become the property of his ex-wife, Clara. Clara went on to manage the Curtis studio with her sister, Nellie M. Phillips (1880-?), who was married to Martin Lucus (1880-?). In 1920 Beth Curtis and her sister Florence Curtis were living in a boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
in Seattle. Clara was living in Charleston, Kitsap County, Washington
Kitsap County, Washington
Kitsap County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington, named after Chief Kitsap of the Suquamish tribe. As of 2011 state estimate, its population was 253,900. Its county seat is at Port Orchard, and its largest city is Bremerton....
with her sister Nellie and her daughter Katherine Curtis.
Hollywood
Around 1922 Curtis moved to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
with his daughter Beth, and opened a new photo studio. To earn money he worked as an assistant cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
and was an uncredited assistant cameraman in the 1923 filming of The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (1923 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American epic silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Theodore Roberts as Moses, Charles de Rochefort as Pharaoh Ramesses, Estelle Taylor as Miriam the sister of Moses, and James Neill as Aaron, the brother of Moses...
. On October 16, 1924 Curtis sold the rights to his ethnographic motion picture
Ethnographic film
An ethnographic film is a documentary film related to the methods of ethnology. It emerged in the 1960s as an important tool for research in the domain of visual anthropology, when filming human groups in society...
In the Land of the Head-Hunters to the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
. He was paid $1,500 for the master print and the original camera negative. It had cost him over $20,000 to film.
Decline
In 1927 after returning from AlaskaAlaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
to Seattle with his daughter Beth, he was arrested for failure to pay alimony
Alimony
Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...
over the preceding 7 years. The total owed was $4,500, but the charges were dropped. For Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
of 1927, the family was reunited at daughter Florence's home in Medford, Oregon
Medford, Oregon
Medford is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2010 US Census, the city had a total population of 74,907 and a metropolitan area population of 207,010, making the Medford MSA the 4th largest metro area in Oregon...
. This was the first time since the divorce that Curtis was with all of his children at the same time, and it had been thirteen years since he had seen Katherine. In 1928, desperate for cash, Edward sold the rights to his project to J.P Morgan's son
J. P. Morgan, Jr.
John Pierpont "Jack" Morgan, Jr. was an American banker and philanthropist.-Biography:He was born on September 7, 1867 in Irvington, New York to John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. and Frances Louisa Tracy. He graduated from Harvard in 1886, where he was a member of the Delphic Club, formerly known as the...
. In 1930 he published the concluding volume of The North American Indian. In total about 280 sets were sold of his now completed opus magnum
Opus Magnum
Opus Magnum is the third album by Austrian melodic death metal band Hollenthon, released by Napalm Records in 2008. Limited edition digipack contains bonus track, "The Bazaar" and video clip for "Son of Perdition"....
. In 1930 his ex-wife, Clara, was still living in Seattle operating the photo studio with their daughter Katherine. His other daughter, Florence Curtis, was still living in Medford, Oregon with her husband Henry Graybill. After Clara died of heart failure in 1932, his daughter Katherine moved to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to be closer to her father and her sister Beth.
Loss of rights to The North American Indian
In 1935 the Morgan estateEstate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
sold the rights and remaining unpublished material to the Charles E. Lauriat Company in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
for $1,000 plus a percentage of any future royalties. This included 19 complete bound sets of The North American Indian, thousands of individual paper prints, the copper printing plates, the unbound printed pages, and the original glass-plate negatives. Lauriat bound the remaining loose printed pages and sold them with the completed sets. The remaining material remained untouched in the Lauriat basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
in Boston until they were rediscovered in 1972.
Death and burial
On October 19, 1952, at the age of 84, Curtis died of a heart attack in Whittier, CaliforniaWhittier, California
Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...
in the home of his daughter, Beth. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
. His terse obituary
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
appeared in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on October 20, 1952:
Curtis archive at the Library of Congress
The Prints and Photographs Division Curtis collection consists of more than 2,400 silver-gelatin, first generation photographic prints — some of which are sepia-toned — made from Curtis's original glass negatives. Most are 5 by 7 in (12.7 by 17.8 cm) although nearly 100 are 11 by 14 in (27.9 by 35.6 cm) and larger; many include the Curtis file or negative number within the image at the lower left-hand corner.The Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
acquired these images through copyright deposit
Copyright registration
The purpose of copyright registration is to place on record a verifiable account of the date and content of the work in question, so that in the event of a legal claim, or case of infringement or plagiarism, the copyright owner can produce a copy of the work from an official government...
from about 1900 through 1930. The dates on them reflect date of registration, not when the photographs were taken. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in the North American Indian volumes and therefore offer a different and unique glimpse into Curtis's work with indigenous cultures. The original glass plate negatives which had been stored and nearly forgotten in the basement of New York's Morgan Library
Morgan Library
The Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...
were dispersed during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Many others were destroyed and some were sold as junk.
Charles Lauriat archive
Around 1970, Karl Kernberger of Santa Fe, New MexicoSanta Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
went to Boston to search for Curtis' original copper plates and photogravure
Photogravure
Photogravure is an intaglio printmaking or photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio print that can reproduce the detail and continuous tones of a...
s at the Charles E. Lauriat rare bookstore. He discovered almost 285,000 original photogravures as well as all the original copper plates. With Jack Loeffler and David Padwa, they jointly purchased all of the surviving Curtis material that was owned by Charles Emelius Lauriat (1874–1937). The collection was later purchased by another group of investors led by Mark Zaplin of Santa Fe. The Zaplin Group owned the plates until 1982, when they sold them to a California group led by Kenneth Zerbe, the current owner of the plates as of 2005.
Peabody Essex Museum
Dr. Charles Goddard WeldCharles Goddard Weld
Charles Goddard Weld , was a Boston-area physician, sailor, philanthropist, and art lover. Weld, a resident of Brookline, Massachusetts and a scion of the Welds of that area, practiced surgery for many years, but ultimately gave it up to manage his family's fortune...
purchased 110 prints that Curtis had made for his 1905-1906 exhibit and donated them to the Peabody Essex Museum
Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum , originally the Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, in Salem, Massachusetts is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States, and holds one of the major collections of Asian art in the US; its total holdings include about 1.3 million pieces, as...
, where they remain. The 14" by 17" prints are each unique and remain in pristine condition. Clark Worswick, curator of photography for the museum, describes them as:
"...Curtis' most carefully selected prints of what was then his life’s work...certainly these are some of the most glorious prints ever made in the history of the photographic medium. The fact that we have this man’s entire show of 1906 is one of the minor miracles of photography and museology."
Controversy
Noble savage
The term noble savage , expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider , and refers to the literary stock character of the same...
and a tragic vanishing race, some believe Curtis detracted attention from the true plight of American natives at the time when he was witnessing their squalid conditions on reservations first-hand and their attempt to find their place in Western culture and adapt to their changing world.
In many of his images Curtis removed parasols, suspenders, wagons, and other traces of Western material culture
Material culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
from his pictures. In his photogravure In a Piegan Lodge, published in The North American Indian, Curtis retouched the image to remove a clock between the two men seated on the ground.
He also is known to have paid natives to pose in staged scenes, wear historically inaccurate dress and costumes, dance and partake in simulated ceremonies. In Curtis' picture Oglala War-Party, the image shows 10 Oglala
Oglala Lakota
The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
men wearing feather headdresses, on horseback riding down hill. The photo caption reads, "a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy's camp." In truth headdresses would have only been worn during special occasions and, in some tribes, only by the chief of the tribe. The photograph was taken in 1907 when natives had been relegated onto reservations and warring between tribes had ended. Curtis paid natives to pose as warriors at a time when they lived with little dignity, rights, and freedoms. It is therefore suggested that he altered and manipulated his pictures to create an ethnographic simulation of Native tribes untouched by Western society.
In fact, it is doubtful that Curtis did anything disreputable or intentionally misleading considering his lifelong dilligence to this art. His obvious intention was to showcase the American Indian in "their own element" as accurately as possible which provided the only credible motive to his removing Western materials, e.g. "a clock", from his photographs which were out of place anachronistically with "pure" Indian culture. The same motivation can be applied to costuming and posing of the native Americans which, contrary to his intention of exposé, gave the impression of idealism beyond his actual intention of realism, albeit euphemistic.
One of the more balanced reviews of The North American Indian comes from Mick Gidley, Emeritus Professor of American Literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
, at Leeds University, in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, who has written a number of works related to the life of Edward S. Curtis:
"The North American Indian-extensively produced and issued in a severely limited edition-could not prove popular. But in recent years anthropologists and others, even when they have censured what they have assumed were Curtis' methodological assumptions or quarrelled with the text's conclusions, have begun to appreciate the value of the project's achievement: exhibitions have been mounted, anthologies of pictures have been published, and The North American Indian has increasingly been cited in the researches of others... The North American Indian is not monolithic or merely a monument. It is alive, it speaks, if with several voices, and among those perhaps mingled voices are those of otherwise silent or muted Indian individuals.”
Of the full Curtis opus N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday
Navarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...
says: “Taken as a whole, the work of Edward S. Curtis is a singular achievement. 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”
Don Gulbrandsen, who wrote Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of the First Americans, puts it this way in his introductory essay on Curtis’ life: “The faces stare out at you, images seemingly from an ancient time and from a place far, far away…Yet as you gaze at the faces the humanity becomes apparent, lives filled with dignity but also sadness and loss, representatives of a world that has all but disappeared from our planet.”
In Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis, Laurie Lawlor reveals that “many Native Americans Curtis photographed called him Shadow Catcher. But the images he captured were far more powerful than mere shadows. The men, women, and children in The North American Indian seem as alive to us today as they did when Curtis took their pictures in the early part of the twentieth century. Curtis respected the Indians he encountered and was willing to learn about their culture, religion and way of life. In return the Indians respected and trusted him.
When judged by the standards of his time, Curtis was far ahead of his contemporaries in sensitivity, tolerance, and openness to Native American cultures and ways of thinking.”
Theodore Roosevelt, who was one of Curtis' contemporaries and one of his most strident supporters, wrote the following comments in the foreword to Volume I of The North American Indian:
"In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose work has far more than mere accuracy, because it is truthful. …because of his extraordinary success in making and using his opportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as far as we can see, no other man could do. Mr. Curtis in publishing this book is rendering a real and great service; a service not only to our own people, but to the world of scholarship everywhere."
External links
- A Virtual Exhibition on Orotone Photographs, Discussing Edward Curtis' orotone/goldtone photographs. Created for the University of Washington Special Collections Division by Christy Hansen, Class of 2011 Museology Graduate Program
- American Masters: Edward Curtis
- Smithsonian: Edward Curtis
- Library of Congress Print Collection: Edward Curtis
- Library of Congress Exhibit: Edward Curtis
- Northwestern University Library: Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian
- Edward Curtis: Selling the North American Indian Hypertext Critical Biography with images, video, images of books, articles and promotional material from American Studies at the University of Virginia
- Cardozo Fine Arts
- Indian days of the long ago, by Edward S. Curtis; illustrated with photos. by the author and drawings by F. N. Wilson, 1915, c1914. (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVuDjVuDjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...
& layered PDF format) - Edward Curtis at Museum Syndicate
- Peabody Essex Museum: The Master Prints of Edwards S. Curtis
- Complete Edward Curtis Collection
- A review of an exhibition in Göttingen, Germany
- The Bruce Kapson Gallery
Periodicals
- New York Times; June 16, 1912; "Briarcliff Lodge, New York, June 15, 1912. Edward S. Curtis of Seattle, WashingtonSeattle, WashingtonSeattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, is the guest of Mrs. J. Stuart White at the Briarcliff Lodge. John J. Sinclair of New York is at the lodge for a short stay previous to sailing for Europe.
Books
- Barbara A. Davis, Edward S. Curtis: The Life and Times of a Shadow Catcher
- Mick Gidley, "Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated", New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Cambridge: Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1998; paperback, 2000) - Mick Gidley, "Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field" (LincolnLincoln, NebraskaThe City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
and LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
: University of Nebraska PressUniversity of Nebraska PressThe University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
, 2003; paperback, 2010) - Edward Sheriff Curtis, Book of his photos published 2008 by Phaidon PressPhaidon PressPhaidon Press is a British publisher of books on the visual arts, including art, architecture, photography, and design worldwide.As of 2009, Phaidon's headquarters are in London, UK, though they were in Oxford for many years, with offices in New York City, Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Tokyo...
- Edward S. Curtis, "The North American Indian" published 2005 by Aperture FoundationAperture FoundationThe Aperture Foundation was founded in 1952 by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Barbara Morgan, Dorothea Lange, Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Ernest Louie, Melton Ferris, and Dody Warren. Their vision was to create a forum for fine art photography, a new concept at the time. The first issue of...