In 1901 Edward Sheriff Curtis set himself an ambitious target - to photograph every Native American tribe west of the Mississippi.
Curtis traveled from Alaska to the Southwest, photographing the Piegan, Blackfoot, Sioux, Gros Ventre, and the Cheyenne, the Hopi, Zunis, Acomas, and Pueblos, among many others… he photographed more than 40,000 Native Americans representing more than eighty tribes.
The project would take him almost thirty years to complete and by the time he died in 1952 Curtis was bankrupt, divorced and had suffered a nervous breakdown. His work “had all but faded into obscurity”.
As Curtis embarked on his mission he soon realised that the great changes taking place in the West was destroying ancient cultures. His work proved popular with many but was often dismissed for the style and settings he shot his subjects in (the photo above shows ‘Old White Man’ from the Library of Congress collection).
In trying to celebrate Native American cultures Curtis often brought artistic flair to those he photographed. The dedicated microsite for the 2002 exhibition at the Peabody Essex museum states that his “photographs reflect both his extraordinary talents as a photographer and his dedication to the people whose majesty he wanted to preserve on film.”
Thomas Haukaas, a Sicangu Lakota Artist & Psychiatrist describes Curtis’s photographs in a brief video on the website. He suggests they were shot in the renaissance style and were overwhelmingly positive images - especially when contrasted with the portrayl of American Indians in traditional western movies.
Curtis was later called ‘Shadow Catcher’ by some of the tribes he photographed and “captured the likeness of many important and well-known Indian people of that time, including Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, Medicine Crow and others.”
Read George Horse Capture’s story on the PBS American Master series site for more info on the project and browse the photo archives at the Library of Congress.
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Tags: American Indians | Edward Curtis | Native American | Photography
