Edward Sheriff Curtis, known as the “Shadow Catcher,” dedicated over thirty years of his life to documenting Native American tribes at the turn of the 20th century. His extensive body of work comprises tens of thousands of photographs and ethnographic recordings, capturing not only the likenesses of prominent tribal figures but, crucially, the traditional ways of life, languages, and music of numerous peoples. Curtis’s approach was deeply respectful; he sought to record the authenticity and spiritual essence of his subjects, often employing reenactments and diligent study of the past. His monumental work, published in twenty volumes, stands as an invaluable historical and artistic legacy.
Focusing on the Apache, Jicarillas, and Navajo tribes, this volume offers an in-depth exploration of their histories, customs, ceremonies, and mythologies. It also includes comparative vocabularies, providing a comprehensive understanding of these Native American cultures. This work is part of a larger series dedicated to documenting the rich heritage of North American Indian tribes.
The book includes many regions, tribes and ages of people, and in some ways even some of the more negative aspects of his photographs are invaluable because they informed much of the mainstream American (worldwide, really) mythology that surrounds First Nations peoples of North America. The photos are somewhere between documentary and romanticism. Where he could have taken straight documentary photos of poverty and tattered Western/white clothing, he instead staged warrior meetings on horseback and the like.
One hundred years ago, Edward Sheriff Curtis began a thirty-year odyssey to photograph and document the lives and traditions of the Native peoples of North America. In this landmark volume, almost 200 of the finest examples of Curtis's photographs are reproduced with startling fidelity to his original prints.
In Sheila Metzner's photographs, beauty transcends mere appearance. Renowned for her rich and refined images in the fashion and television industries since the 1970s, her work has attracted diverse clients like Fendi, Ralph Lauren, and Chanel. Metzner skillfully blends the pictorialist aesthetics of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen with the modernist flair of Man Ray and Charles Sheeler, resulting in a unique style that has significantly impacted photography's history. Many of her photographs achieve a transcendent quality through a printing process developed by the Fresson family in 1895, which she employs to create painterly images with ethereal tonal ranges and color saturation. As one of only ten American photographers collaborating with Atelier Fresson, Metzner's work exemplifies this creative partnership. The collection showcases her fashion photography alongside sensual nudes and formalist still lifes from 1980 to 2000, presenting a retrospective that balances romanticism with precision and detail. This presentation highlights Metzner's distinctive creative vision, offering images that resonate with elegance and distinction.
Legendary for his massive photographic undertaking The North American Indian, Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) recorded much more than portraits of Native American tribespeople. Among his huge body of work are numerous images of all manner of native tipis, hogans, huts, cliff houses, adobes, and many more that are far less familiar to the public eye. Though people are largely absent from these photographs, each image speaks volumes about the lives and lifestyles of the tribes to which they belonged. Other structures such as tombs, religious buildings, granaries, and totem poles are also featured prominently, further glimpses into ways of life that were in the process of disappearing. Taken from the Dan and Mary Solomon collection, Sites & The Architectural Photographs of Edward S. Curtis is the first book of Curtis photographs to explore these dwellings and structures, faithfully reproduced from the original prints and gravures. Curator and photography historian Rod Slemmons puts these photographs in context among Curtis's more familiar portraits and considers their anthropological and artistic importance. Reproduced in large, splendid tritones, Sites & Structures is one of the finest monographs of this American photographic master.
Provides a unique pictorial record of more than 80 American Indian tribes, their traditions and customs.
Prayer to the Great Mystery is a historic publishing event, a remarkable coup that presents 93 newly discovered photographs--along with 150 others--taken by Edward S. Curtis. Deeply human and symphathetic, these images embody Curtis's attempt to preserve the character is Native American Cultural life before its erosion by the nineteenth-century flood of American expansion. Accompanying the photographs is a poignant series of myths, abridged from Curtis's ethnographic writings. Prayers to the Great Mystery is a stunning account of a vanished era, and a seminal book for understanding our rich Native American legacy.
