Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis

7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis

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Contents

94

110

Previewing New Exhibitions Every Month Coast To Coast

PresCottsAntA Fe

CLIFton

FreDerICKsBUrG

GrAnD CAnYon

CoDY

CoeUr DALene

JACKson

soLo sHoWs

94 Kyl PolzinVintage appeal

96 Andrw PtrsHeartland heritage

98 Ralph OrgThe mountain world

100 Nicholas ColmanAll things West

102 Dladir AlmidaPower of observation

GroUP sHoWs

104 Fall ShowcasWorks by gallery and guest artists

106 Fall GoldAurulent autumn highlights

108 Lgacy o Natur

Fresh wildlife and sporting art

110 Classic Cody50 new diverse works

112 45th milstonUp to 150 available works

114 Vic and Dustin PaynThe Payne legacy

116 Miniaturs y th LakSmall-scale artworks

SPMbR 2012

102

oKLAHoMA CItYCArtersvILLe

InDIAnAPoLIs

Boston

orADeLL


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Special Sections f Wd: 62C Wdf A

Sy f A A 82A d A

S f A: Id 87

FeaturesWdf f W-d: Wk f

Ldy S

By John Geraghty 40

I V: A C Wdf A k S

By Adam Duncan Harris 48

Sd f : Lf d Wk

f dd C

By James D. Balestrieri 54

Departments Sy C P Gd 34W M Rd d

Ry Aqd 38

A F P 118

000tile Goes HereEx et alit lut lutem dolorem eriliquamet eu feuissit, sit nibh ea

Auctions & ventsPrevIeWs

123 Wstrn VisionsJackson, WY

126 Qust or th WstIndianapolis, IN

130 Fall Arts FstivalJackson, WY

132 bosqu Arts ClassicClifton, TX

134 bufalo bill Art Show & SalCody, WY

136 Grand Canyon Clrationo ArtGrand Canyon, AZ

138 Hnry Inman exhiitCartersville, GA

140 Arizonarama!Prescott, AZ

142 Jackson Hol Art AuctionJackson, WY

rePorts

148 Cour dAln Art AuctionCoeur dAlene, ID

150 Coplys Summr SalBoston, MA

123Wesern visions

Jackson, WY


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S H A D O W SofT I M E

In May of this year, a deluxe set of Edward

Curtis 20-volume photographic and

anthropological opus The North American

Indian, fetched a record $2,882,000 (with the

buyers premium), at Christies. In October,

Swann Galleries in New York will offer a

magnificent set estimated at $1,250,000

to 1,750,000. As well, Mia Valley of Valley

Fine Art in Aspen has opened her newly-

remodeled gallery with a Curtis exhibition.

Individual Curtis photographs in their

original frames now routinely exceed

$10,000. So, some 60 years after his death,

Edward Sheriff Curtis, born into abject,

boiled-potatoes-at-every-meal poverty, a

man who sacrificed everything to serve his

own artistic ambitions and obsessions, has

come into his own. More remarkable than

the prices his work now commands is the

story of the man and his art.

The son of a penurious Northern

Minnesota preacher who often visited

his parishioners by canoe, young Edward

Curtis built his first camera out of wood,

using a stereographic lens his father had

brought back from the Civil War. As with

many artists, there is a gap between thesefirst stirrings and the moment the artist

began to make his name, but somehow,

after obscure twists of fate and turns of the

screw, Edward Curtis appears in Seattle,

marries Clara Phillips (no shutterbug) and

finds himself master of a small successful

portrait studio. He would have been far

more successful, however, had he spent more

time in the studio and less time by the shore of

Puget Sound, photographing seascapes and the

Native Americans who resided there, subsisting

on the bounty of the sea. One old woman,

Princess Angeline, daughter of Chief Sealth

(Seattle), fascinated Curtis and he paid her $1

per portrait as she sat for him. Soon, Curtis

studio added sepia prints of Indians to its

specialty in portraits of Seattles social elite.

The idea for The North American Indian

was coming into focus, but it was a chance

meeting in 1898 that changed the course

of Edward Curtis life and work. Curtis was

rambling and photographing Mount Rainier

when he stumbled upon a party lost on the

mountainside. Curtis thawed out these

scientificos (as he later called them) who

happened to be some of the nations most

eminent naturalists: C. Hart Merriman,

chief of the U.S. Biological Survey; Gifford

Pinchot, chief of the Division of Forestry;

and George Bird Grinnell, editor of Field

& Stream magazine and an author of

numerous works on the Plains Indians. They

invited Curtis to accompany them on an

expedition to Alaska the following summer

and to visit the Blackfoot in Montana

the summer after that. There, Curtis saw

that the way of the Indian was rapidly

vanishing and he began to formulate

the project that would occupy him for

nearly three decades. With the blessing

of President Theodore Roosevelt and the

financial backing of J. Pierpont Morgan,

Curtis proposal took shape in 1906. The

North American Indian would be issued in

20 volumes with 1,500 photographs. There

would be 500 sets, printed on two kindsof paper: Japanese vellum for some and a

very expensive stockVan Gelderfor the

deluxe edition. Each set would include a

separate portfolio of the best images and

an exactingly researched accompanying

text would illuminate previously unknown

aspects of Native American culture. The

work was expensive and sets would be sold at

$3,000 and $3,850, based on the paper stock.

The work would be sold by subscription.

Cu rtis complete set ofT he N orth Am erican Indian ,

comprises 20 volumes and 1,500 photographs.

COURTESY BY SWANN GALLERIES

Opposite page: Plate 21 Chief Garfield - Jicarilla,

1904 , vintage photogravure, 22 x 18"

B y J a m e s D . B a l e s t r i e r i

T H E L I F E

A N D W OR K O F

E D WA R D C U R T I S


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W E S T E R N A R T I N S I G H T S


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Despite the backing, institutions

and individuals did not flock to

subscribe. Sales rose and fell with

fluctuations in the economy that,

in an echo of todays art market,

saw library, museum and university

budgets slashed, and meneven

those who could easily afford it

suddenly reluctant to tie up funds

in a project that might never fully

be realized.

Curtis letters from the field

abound with pleas to his editor in

New York and Washington to pushthe work and to get the next volume

out in order to renew the interest

of the press. At times, he himself

would leave his camera and head

east, lecturing and promoting a film

he had made, Land of the Head

Hunters, using actual Kwakiutl

Indians in British Columbia to

reenact their stories and legends, all

in service of the great work.

In the field, Curtis worked

tirelessly with an assistant, traversing

the American West from Arizona to

Alaska, making contacts as they raced

against time to visit every possible

tribe. In addition to photography,

Curtis also made more than 10,000

wax cylinder recordings of Native

American languages, songs and

music, an ethnographic bounty that

continues to be mined. Some of Curtisphotographs, writings and recordings

are the only extant histories.

Curtis was especially intrigued by

Native American spirituality and had

a knack for getting himself invited

to observe or participate in secret

ceremonies, often risking his neck

Princess Angeline (unpublished), vintage goldtone with original batwing frame,

ed. 1 of 3, 10 x 8. D escription written by C urtis: This aged woman, daughter of

Ch ief Seattle, was for many years a familiar figure in the streets of Seattle.

Br ul e Wa r Pa rty, 19 07, silver border print, 6 x 8. Quill signed, dated in the

negative #, blind stamped, acquired from the estate of Edward S. Curtis.


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W E S T E R N A R T I N S I G H T S

H opi Sn ak e Pr iest, 19 00 , silver border print, 8 x 6". Quill signed, dated in the negative #, blind stamped, acquired from the estate of Edward S. Curtis.


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to do so. Longing to participate in the sacred

Kwakiutl whale hunt, Curtis was told that he

would have to go to the Island of the Dead

and procure a mummy and a dozen skulls.

The mummy was to be placed in the bow of

the whaling canoe. When later asked if he had

participated in the Kwakiutl mummy-eating

ceremony before the hunt, Curtis demurred,

explaining that an admission of cannibalism

might lead to a long stretch in a Canadian

jail. Another film-worthy incident occurred there

when Curtis decided to spend the night among

giant sea lions on tiny Devil Rock. Left by the

boat that brought them, Curtis discovered that

the rock would be underwater, or nearly so, at

high tide during the night. The sea lions, he also

discovered, had no intention of sharing their

quarters. Curtis and his party ended up on a

postage stamp of dry rock, beset by lice, fighting

off the sea lions with empty gasoline cans.

All this was hard on Curtis familyherarely saw themand in 1920, his wife

sued for divorce, winning control over the

negativesand thus any future proceedsof

The North American Indian photographs. But

Curtis remained very close to his children, and

his daughter Beth would soon join her father

and remain by his side until the publication of

Volume 20 in 1930. They would take on the

Alaska volumes together and suffer in the harsh

climate. The Curtis party was declared lost and

dead more than once in the late 1920s.

In 1928, Curtis, still in desperate financial

straits, sold all rights to The North American

Indian to J. Pierpont Morgans son. From then

on the work would be solely a labor of love.

In all, 222 sets ofThe North American Indian

were produced.

In his own lifetime and to this day, the

charge has been leveled against Curtis that

he staged his images, that they further the

stereotype of the tragic, doomed, noble Indian.

But all photographs are, to some extent, staged.

The interplay of light on shapes is what gives

rise to the impulse to place the camera and take

the shot. A look at any one of his photographs

shows that he strove to grasp the individuality

of each subject, each place, each moment.

That he succeeded within the confines of a

palette of browns and whites is astonishing. The

images reach out to us, full of the moment of

their taking. Curtis, the Shadow Catcher, asthe Indians called him, caught the shadow of

time. Beyond that, the rituals he photographed

were often reenactments of neglected native

practices. Modernity had found even the

crevices of Native American culture, and, as

Curtis observed, no tribe had been untouched

by Christianity. Curtis wanted to show a world

on the brink of extinction, a world that was.

But twilight is both light and darkness and, in

balance, Curtis achievement far outweighs any

manipulation that might be imputed.

Edward Curtis lived a dramatic, cinematic

life. But he, too, might be seen as one of the

last of a vanishing race, that combination of

artist, adventurer and scientist that continues to

enchant the popular imagination. With Curtis,

the line from Audubon, Catlin, Bodmer, William

Henry Jackson, seems to come to an end. But

who, after all, could follow Edward Curtis?

For an excellent book on Curtis, see:

Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen.

Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of a Vanishing

Race. New York: Thomas E. Crowell. 1976.

About James D. Balestrieri

Jim Balestrieri is director of

J. N. Bartfield Galleries in

New York City. He also writes

the Scottsdale Art Auctioncatalogue and, during the sale,

can be found screaming out

phone bids. Jim has written

plays, verse, prose, and screenplays. He

has degrees from Columbia and Marquette

universities, attended the American Film

Institute and has an MFA in Playwriting from

Carnegie-Mellon. He has an excellent wife and

three enthusiastic children who, he insists, will

work in finance or science, though they are

taking an unhealthy interest in the arts.

Plate 115 W hite M an Runs Him , 1908, vintage

photogravure, portfolio, 22 x 18"

Plate 127 W inter Apsaroke, 1908, vintage ph otogravure, 18 x 22". Images courtesy Valley Fine Art.

Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis

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