7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
1/9
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
2/9
106
Upcoming Solo & Group Shows
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
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
3/9
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
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
4/9
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
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
5/9
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
6/9
W E S T E R N A R T I N S I G H T S
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
7/9
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.
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
8/9
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.
7/31/2019 Shadows of Time: The Life and Work of Edward Curtis
9/9
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.