Edward S. Curtis – Portraits Gallery
Click on thumbnails to link to high-resolution images. Images may be reproduced for editorial or educational use only.
Click on thumbnails to link to high-resolution images. Images may be reproduced for editorial or educational use only.
In the summer of 2017, the Muskegon Museum of Art exhibited, in its entirety, Edward Curtis’s masterwork The North American Indian. Comprised of 20 volumes of texts and thousands of images, including 723 large format photogravures in accompanying portfolios, The North American Indian recorded the lives, culture, and history of Native American Tribes from the Southwestern, Plains, and Northwestern United States in the early 20th century. For 30 years, Curtis traveled extensively, producing photographs, copious field notes, and wax cylinder recordings. Available by subscription, the project enjoyed initial success but Curtis was bankrupt and forgotten by the time the final volume was published in 1930. The surviving prints and plates were rediscovered in the 1970s, leading to a revival of interest that continues today. The Muskegon Museum of Art’s complete set was obtained in 1907, when Lulu Miller, the librarian of the Hackley Public Library, convinced the Muskegon Board of Education (who governed the library) to subscribe.
Curtis Legacy Foundation Census
Modern scholarship reveals many of the flaws of Curtis’s work, products of the prevailing Euro-centric prejudices and attitudes of his time. Curtis’s intention to record and preserve the cultures of Native American Tribes before they vanished under a deliberate campaign by the United States government was commendable and ultimately successful. Ironically, his project also served to codify and perpetuate the dominant stereotypes of the time. As an artist and historian, Curtis staged images, edited contents to reflect his own intentions and pre-existing beliefs, and cloaked much of his product in a veil of romanticism. Curtis’s texts indeed preserved oral history, music, and language that may have otherwise been lost, but the cultural heritage of America’s Native peoples ultimately endured without his efforts, never “vanishing” as predicted by leading scholars of the day.
It was vitally important to the MMA and guest curator Ben Mitchell that our exhibition reflect not only the history of such a monumental artistic undertaking as The North American Indian but also the full range of controversies that surround it. Working with leading Native Indian scholars, artists, and West Michigan area Tribes, our team developed programming, content, and text that shared the fullest story possible with our viewers, while challenging assumptions and inviting new perspectives. The text developed as part of our exhibition appeared on panels throughout the galleries and was narrated by Ben Mitchell in a series of YouTube videos. As we look back on our successes and forward to our expanding future, these videos remain an important resource to understanding our permanent collection and shared cultural heritage.
You can find the entire series at the links below.
Find all our videos on the Muskegon Museum of Art YouTube channel.
The 150th Anniversary of Edward Curtis: 150 Masterpieces from The North American Indian [PDF]
The purpose of this census is to determine an accurate number of bound sets and volumes of the original edition of The North American Indian. Published by Edward Curtis from 1907 to 1930, The North American Indian was planned to be a limited edition of 500 sets. Due to the extremely high cost of the publication and the prolonged publication cycle, it’s thought that no more than 300 complete or partial sets were finally printed. This census will determine, as accurately as possible, the actual number of complete or partial sets that were printed and their present locations. The website also includes research resources. Curtis Census: A Census of the Edward Curtis Masterpiece, The North American Indian
Northwestern University digitized the complete contents of all 20 volumes of The North American Indian, including all 723 portfolio photogravures. View all the photographic plates from Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian online.
The Library of Congress Curtis Collection is also a valuable resource.
The 150th Anniversary of Edward Curtis: 150 Masterpieces from The North American Indian
Hans Christian Adam, The North American Indian: The Complete Portfolios, Taschen, 2015
Joseph Epes Brown, The North American Indians: A Selection of Photographs by Edward. S. Curtis, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1972
Alfred L. Bush and Lee Clark Mitchell, The Photograph and the American Indian, Princeton University Press, 1994
Christopher Cardozo, Sacred Legacy: Edward S. Curtis and The North American Indian, Verve Editions, 2000
—— . Edward S. Curtis: The Women, Bullfinch Press, 2005
—— . Edward S. Curtis: One Hundred Masterworks, Delmonico Books, 2015
A.D. Coleman and T.C. McLuhan, Edward S. Curtis: Portraits from North American Indian Life, Outerbridge and Lazard, 1972
Edward S. Curtis, Indian Life and Indian Lore: Indian Days of Long Ago, Leopold Classic Library, 2016
Barbara A. Davis, Edward S. Curtis: The Life and Times of a Shadow Catcher, Chronicle Books, 1985
Sara Day, Heart of the Circle: Photographs by Edward S. Curtis of Native American Women, Pomegranate Artbooks, 1997
Timothy Egan, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, 2012
Mick Gidley, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated, Cambridge University Press, 1998
——. The Plains Indian Photographs of Edward S. Curtis, University of Nebraska Press, 2001
——. Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field, University of Oklahoma Press, 2003
Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen, Edward Sheriff: Visions of a Vanishing Race, Promontory Press, 1976
George Bird Grinnell, The Harriman Expedition: Encountering the Tlingit and Eskimo in 1899, University of Alaska Press, 2007
Don Gulbrandsen, Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of the First Americans, Chartwell Book, 2006
Bill Holm and George Irving Quimgy, Edward S. Curtis in the Land of the War Canoes: A Pioneer Cinematographer in the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington Press, 1980
Christopher M. Lyman, The Vanishing Race and Other Illusions: Photographs of Indians by Edward S. Curtis, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982
Anne Makepeace, Edward S. Curtis: Coming to Light, National Geographic, 2001
Johanna Cohan Scherer, Edward S. Curtis, Phaidon Press, 2008
Dan and Mary Soloman, Sites and Structures: The Architectural Photographs of Edward S. Curtis, Chronicle Books, 2000
Steadman Upham and Nat Zappia, The Many Faces of Edward Sheriff Curtis: Portraits and Stories from Native North America, University of Washington Press, 2006
Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher, Simon and Schuster, 2007
Carl Worswick, Edward Curtis: The Master Prints, Arena Editions, 2001
Wayne L. Youngblood, Edward S. Curtis Portraits: The Many Faces of the Native American, Fall River Press, 2009
Shamoon Zamir, The Gift of the Face: Portraiture and Time in Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian, University of North Carolina Press, 2014
Jane Alison (editor), Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography, Barbican Art Gallery, 1998
Will Baker, Backward: On Indians, Time, And Photography, North Atlantic Books, 1983
Chris Bruce, Myth of the West, Rizzoli International, 1990
Joanna Cohen, The Great Photographs that Reveal North American Indian Life, 1847-1929: From the Smithsonian Institution, Crown Publishers, 1973
Paula Richardson Fleming and Judith Lusky, The North American Indians in Early Photographs, Barnes and Noble Books, 1986
William H. and William N. Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination, W. W. Norton, 1986
Peter B. Hales, William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape, Temple University Press, 1988
Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, W. W. Norton, 1987
Lucy R. Lippard (editor), Partial Recall: Photographs of Native North Americans, The New Press, 1992
Beaumont Newhall, The History of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, 1982
Douglas R. Nickel, Carlton Watkins: The Art of Perception, Harry N. Abrams, 1999
Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places, University of Chicago Press, 1989
Martha A. Sandweiss, Print the Legend: Photography and the American West, Yale University Press, 2002
Click on thumbnails to view full size images. Images may be reproduced for editorial or educational use only.