28 September 2005
Latin America Tour Set for Curtis Photos of North America Tribes
Famed photographer recorded Indian tribal life in 19th, early 20th century
Washington -- Many of the most iconic 19th-century images of American Indian peoples are the work of renowned photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), whose extensive documentation of indigenous tribal life in the United States and Canada produced compelling pictures that continue to shape popular perceptions about the Western frontier.
Soon a broad selection of those images that have long captivated viewers from around the world will be on display in Latin America, thanks to a traveling photographic exhibit created expressly for the U.S. Department of State. Designed to illustrate the extraordinary diversity of the North American Indian tribes, and to stimulate positive dialogue among diverse populations in Latin America, the exhibit aims to reach as wide an audience as possible, say curators.
To accomplish that goal, two identical exhibits of Curtis's photographs will travel throughout Latin America for one year, beginning in early October 2005. Each exhibit will contain 60 museum-quality, fine-art photographic prints and a film by Anne Makepeace that examines Curtis's work and its relationship to contemporary Native Americans.
THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Curtis began his 30-year odyssey of studying and photographing Native Americans in the summer of 1900, but he first took photographs of Indians in the United States' Pacific Northwest region several years earlier. The tribes of the Northwest Coast reportedly had the most elaborate and sophisticated material culture of any indigenous groups visited by Curtis. As he soon discovered, the Northwestern tribes had developed spectacular ceremonial objects, such as complex masks and totem poles.
In his images of the Northwest's indigenous people, Curtis often featured scenic backdrops such as lakes and rivers (a favorite element of the photographer), along with mountain valleys surrounded by majestic forests. His photographs of tribal life in the Plateau and Woodlands regions, which extend from the northern United States into Canada, are perhaps some of his most lyrical and serene.
Curtis's fieldwork for his epic, 20-volume portfolio of photographs, titled "The North American Indian," came to a close during the summer of 1927, when he spent the season with the Eskimos of sub-Arctic and Arctic Alaska. The Eskimos, of necessity, were seafaring people, using kayaks and canoes to hunt at sea. Seals, walrus and whales were a tremendous resource -- providing meat to be dried, smoked and cured, then stored and used as food during the winter. The hunt for these animals was dangerous, but also thrilling and rewarding because only the most adept hunters could pilot safely their vessels through the icy arctic waters to secure food.
In the landscape of the Northwest, Curtis often found a perfect setting in which to portray Indian tribes whose culture and religion still seemed in complete harmony with their natural environment. This is reflected in the poetic quality of his best photographs from the area, suggesting that the places and peoples he found in the Northwest exemplified the sacred legacy he strove to record.
THE GREAT PLAINS
The year 1900 was a pivotal one for Curtis. That summer, when he made a brief expedition to the Great Plains of the American West and Midwest, he witnessed one of the last great enactments of the Sun Dance: a key ritual of Plains Indian life. As Curtis watched the Sun Dance ceremony, he conceived his vision for the grand photo-ethnographic undertaking that would become his life's work. These photographs formed the beginning of the vast, elegant portrait of Native American cultures that Curtis would bring to the world over the next 30 years.
During Curtis's time, the Indians of the Great Plains lived primarily in North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, a territory once traversed by great herds of migrating buffalo. Curtis strongly was attracted to the fiercely independent way of life of such tribes as the Lakota (Sioux), Apsaroke and Piegan, and seemed particularly adept at transforming their dignity and pride into extraordinary photographic images.
Curtis's photographs of Indian life on the Great Plains comprise perhaps his most popular body of work: for many people, his photographs of chiefs and warriors, the intricate beadwork, the horses, and the Plains landscape have come to exemplify the American Indian. However, his photographs of the Plains Indians also documented many other aspects of tribal life -- including hunting, warfare, vision quests and religious ceremonies.
The tribes of the Great Plains were the most formidable and powerful in North America, and they inspired Curtis by the majesty of their lives. The great expanses of land and sky, the horses, the lodges, the sacred sun ceremonies -- all are depicted in Curtis's stirring Plains landscape photographs.
THE SOUTHWEST
The summer of 1900 also brought Curtis to the American Southwest. Initially, he chose to photograph the region's Hopi, Navajo and Apache tribes, and in the ensuing years, he would return to study and photograph the various tribes of the Southwest more frequently than those of any other area.
The Indians of the Southwest lived primarily in Arizona and New Mexico, although their presence also extended into parts of Texas, California and northern Mexico. Because of the scarcity of vegetation, game and water in their semi-arid habitat, the tribal people of the Southwest became largely dependent on agriculture for subsistence. As their reliance on agriculture grew, the Indians of the Southwest adopted an increasingly village-oriented culture. In fact, some of their villages and pueblos have been inhabited continuously for hundreds of years, making them among the oldest permanent settlements still in use in North America today.
One reason Curtis was drawn to the Southwest Indian tribes was the opportunity they afforded him for an unusual glimpse into Indian life undiluted by the influence of European customs. In the early 1900s, many people still lived in traditional ways, deeply attached to their ancient culture and religious practices. Additionally, Curtis was fascinated by the strong relationship Southwest Indians had with their ancestral land, which in both its physical and metaphysical manifestations was at the center of their history, tradition and beliefs. Virtually all practices revolved around it.
Curtis's immersion in the landscape and cultures of the Southwest Indian clearly is evident in the photographs he made in the region. These images, and the written records that Curtis produced over several decades, mirror his deep understanding of the unique geocultural interplay of people and place.
EXHIBIT CREDITS AND ITINERARY
After decades of obscurity in rare book rooms and private collections, Curtis's remarkable photographic record of North American Indian life from 1900 to 1930 now is experiencing a renaissance, as scholars and other enthusiasts rediscover a dramatic visual testimonial to the proud history of North America's native peoples.
The photographs featured in the twin exhibits that will travel throughout Latin America are drawn from the archive and personal collection of Christopher Cardozo, widely recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on Curtis and his photography. Cardozo is the author of six books on Curtis and is the founder/chair of the Edward S. Curtis Foundation.
Starting in early October, the two identical exhibits will open simultaneously in Guatemala and Argentina, and will circulate around the region until November 2006. In addition to Guatemala and Argentina, the exhibits will be on display in Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, Paraguay and Peru.
More information on Curtis and his photographs of North American Indians is available from Christopher Cardozo Fine Art, a company that owns the world’s largest inventory of Curtis photographs. For additional in information on the exhibit's itinerary, please contact the local U.S. Embassy's Public Affairs Office.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
