The Photo-lithographs
Edition Size: 285
Clockwise from top left - The Rush Gatherer, The Vanishing Race, Crater Lake, Oasis in the Badlands, Canyon de Chelly, Three Chiefs
All Images Size: 21 x 27” Paper Size: 28” x 34”
The master printmaker and artist, Steven Anderson, created our beautiful contemporary photo-lithographs. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rockefeller Fellowship. He has also collaborated with over 100 artists including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe & William Wegman. His prints have been exhibited in over 2,000 exhibits including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, The National Gallery, The MET, MOCA & LACMA.
For this project he used a secret, proprietary planographic process, which utilizes a variable range, multi-plate black and tone color technique. Each print required six separate impressions comprising four blacks, a tone color and a selected varnish application. The inks were manufactured especially for this project in France, utilizing ancient formulas reserved for a very select group of master printmakers. The acid free, heavy weight woven mouldmade paper was custom produced for this specific project in England.
The Three Chiefs - 1900
“The Three Chiefs” is, historically, arguably the single most important of Curtis’ 50,000 photographic images. The photograph was made in the summer of 1900 and is the key image from that critical, watershed period in Curtis’ life. It was during this short field trip to Montana with noted ethnographer George Bird Grinnell that Curtis first met Native Americans whose culture was still largely intact and who were also willing to share their religion, mythology, and personal lives with him. This brief encounter ignited Curtis’ passion to preserve a comprehensive record of Native American life. This two-week experience unalterably changed Curtis, and his life was never the same again. It is said that in making this image of three tribal leaders in their traditional garb on a typical upland prairie, that Curtis spent three days looking for the perfect combination of riders, sky, and land.
The Vanishing Race – 1904
“The Vanishing Race” was Curtis’ signature piece and was the visual metaphor for the core conceptual underpinning of Curtis’ entire thirty-year project i.e., that Native Americans, as a culture, at least, were vanishing. It became Curtis’ over-arching goal to create a record of them and their world before they disappeared forever. Curtis searched for an image to illustrate this idea for nearly four years before creating The Vanishing Race. A century ago, it was by far and away Curtis’ most popular single image. Today it still remains a highly sought after classic.
Canyon de Chelly – 1904
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “de chay”, after the Navaho “Ta Shay”) was one of the most sacred places for the Navaho and remains so to this day. It is located in Northeastern Arizona in the heart of Navaho country. Of Curtis’ 50,000 negatives this is considered to be one of his ten most important and powerful. The insignificance of man relative to nature is clearly illustrated through the sheer size of enduring cliff formations (over 1,000 feet high) that surround the riders.
An Oasis in the Badlands – 1905
This classic Curtis image was made in the heart of the Bad Lands of South Dakota. The subject is the sub-chief Red Hawk who was born 1854 and participated in his first war party in 1865 with Crazy Horse against U.S. army troops. He was a fierce warrior and ultimately engaged in 20 battles, including the Custer fight in 1876. This lyrical image is widely considered to be Curtis’ most important and beautiful Great Plains peopled landscape. Curtis loved the visual and metaphorical qualities of water, and the photo-lithograph conveys the beauty of water as an aesthetic element. The compelling composition and subject matter have helped make this one of Curtis’ most sought after and beautiful images, even one hundred years after it was originally created.
The Rush Gatherer – 1910
This is one of Curtis’ most beautiful and compelling images. This photograph was taken on Flathead Lake in Northern Montana and the Native American pictured is from the Kutenai tribe. The Kutenai were semi-nomadic and occupied portions of southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, moving seasonally to follow food sources. The Kutenai usually crafted their canoes of pine bark, but as illustrated here, occasionally made canoes of fresh elk hides stretched over a framework of fir strips. The rushes gathered in mountain lakes were dried and strung together into mats, lodge coverings, and other utilitarian items.
Crater Lake – 1923
The chief, pictured here in full regalia, is a member of the Klamath tribe of Southeast Oregon. The Klamath territory is dotted with lakes and marshes, which accounts for many aspects of Klamath daily life. In this photograph the chief is overlooking Crater Lake, which is one of the deepest, purest bodies of water in North America. The lake occupies the crater formed by an extinct volcano and is spectacular not only in its beauty but also, with thirty-two miles of lake-shore, in size and scale.
Luis Gonzalez Palma
Luis Gonzalez Palma
“The Bodyguards”
The Art of Making Fine Photographs
- Goldtone -
Fully realizing the power, beauty, and subtlety of Palma’s “Bodyguards” series requires the involvement of a number of experts in a variety of fields. This was necessitated by the great number and variety of critical and often subtle decisions that had to be made. The result; prints that embody the spirit and vision of the artist, and do so with a power and delicacy rarely seen in modern photographs. The master printers, Peter Bernardy and Brad Miller, spent over twelve-hundred hours doing the research, experimentation and proofing necessary to realize the first finished sets of prints. Additionally, two radically different, proprietary print processes were ultimately chosen as the highest form of expression for these particular images.
One of these photographic processes is Goldtone™. It’s a proprietary process that incorporates an emulsion on glass combination that is unique in the one hundred and seventy year history of photography. Thus, the photograph is printed directly on glass. It is then toned multiple times. Finally, the toned print is backed with a multi-layer, archivally-sealed gold-hued metallic medium. The process begins with Palma’s original, camera negative and then incorporates a painstaking and exacting combination of digital and analogue processes. The proprietary Goldtone™ process was perfected a decade ago, after three years of research and development and nearly one third of a million dollars. The result is the most luminous and three-dimensional photographic prints being made today. The goldtone technique was originally invented over one hundred years ago and was perfected and popularized by Edward S. Curtis, the world-renowned photographer of the North American Indian. Because of its expense and complexity the goldtone was always an extremely rare process, rarer even than platinum. Today there is only one source in the world for photographs of this beauty and permanence in the goldtone process, the one utilized here.
“The Bodyguards”
The Art of Making Fine Photographs
- Platinum -
Fully realizing the power, beauty, and subtlety of Palma’s “Bodyguards” series requires the involvement of a number of experts in a variety of fields. This was necessitated by the great number and variety of critical and often subtle decisions that had to be made. The result; prints that embody the spirit and vision of the artist, and do so with a power and delicacy rarely seen in modern photographs. The master printers, Peter Bernardy and Brad Miller, spent over twelve-hundred hours doing the research, experimentation and proofing necessary to realize the first finished sets of prints. Additionally, two radically different, proprietary print processes were ultimately chosen as the highest form of expression for these particular images.
One of these photographic processes is platinum/palladium (here-in-after simply referred to “platinum”). Platinum prints are generally regarded as the most desirable form of photographic printing in existence. Platinum prints by Steichen, Strand, Penn, et al are not only extremely rare and valuable but, typically are the most sought-after form of print created by any of the great masters of the photographic medium. Platinum is unrivaled in its archival permanence and its ability to produce exceptionally rich and subtle prints. Platinum prints are typically 10-50 times more expensive to produce than a traditional gelatin silver print. They are infinitely more complex and time consuming to create. Today, our master printers, on a good day, can produce only four to five of these finished Palma platinum prints per day.
The platinum process involves a great deal of handwork and a huge number of variables, which must be accurately controlled (and/or compensated for). The addition of the Japanese Gampi paper adds another layer of complexity and difficulty. Gampi paper, also known as “the king of fibers” was chosen because of its extraordinary delicacy, strength, translucence, and pearl-like patina. Because the gampi plant cannot be cultivated and the paper is hand-produced by individual paper-makers, it is also both rare and expensive. Gampi provides a unique support system for the platinum salts and, combined with the hand-made nature of the whole process, gives each print its own personality and feel. Gampi is one of the finest papers made in Japan, a country rich in its 1300-year-old paper making tradition. Gampi was also chosen because it is both strong and delicate, mirroring the images themselves.
Luis Gonzalez Palma
Goldtones in vintage daguerreotype cases
Bodyguard #1
Bodyguard #2
Bodyguard #3
Bodyguard #4
Bodyguard #5
Bodyguard #6
Bodyguard #7
Bodyguard #8
Platinum Tissue Prints
Bodyguard #1
Bodyguard #2
Bodyguard #3
Bodyguard #4
Bodyguard #5
Bodyguard #6
Bodyguard #7
Bodyguard #8
Solas...Calladamente (Alone... In Silence) 1 + 2, ca. 1990
Assemblages with silver emulsion on watercolor paper, wood, stamped tin and colored glass
Curtis Contemporary Platinum Prints
Platinum/Palladium Prints on Twinrocker Paper
Cardozo Fine Art is pleased to announce an important offering of Edward S. Curtis platinum/palladium prints. A decade of research, experimentation, international exhibitions, and critical feedback has culminated in the creation of these stunning prints. Fifteen of Curtis’ most iconic images have been selected for this special offering. These archival, museum quality fine art prints are created from our private archive of vintage Curtis glass-plate negatives using a variety of proprietary techniques and processes. Prototypes of these platinum/palladium prints have been exhibited in over fifty countries, and on every continent but Antarctica.
No expense was spared in creating these extraordinary prints. After years of experimentation and research we have now achieved a rich, warm sepia tonality that echoes Curtis’ aesthetic and vision. We have chosen a mixture of platinum and palladium, both noble metals, for creating these prints. The inclusion of palladium, which is nearly identical to platinum, produces a much warmer tonality when properly processed. Collectors and connoisseurs treasure platinum/palladium prints for their photographic beauty and archival permanence.
We have worked closely with Twinrocker; a decades-old, boutique custom paper-maker, to source a beautiful, heavyweight hand-crafted paper that is similar to the double-weight artist’s paper used by Curtis a century ago. Twinrocker combines many centuries-old techniques with a number of modern innovations to create their signature papers.
The printing itself is a complex, multi-step, hand-crafted, custom process. Each print requires over twenty-five individual, steps by hand. Custom chemistry is hand-mixed and then hand- applied to the custom-made paper. After years of experimentation and research we have learned to vary and customize the normal processes for platinum/palladium printing to achieve a rich sepia rarely found in platinum or palladium prints. Prototypes of our Curtis palladium prints have been exhibited internationally in over fifty countries to great acclaim.
A Heavy Load
A Son of the Desert
Medicine Crow Povi-tamu “Sunflower”
The Potter
Vash Gon - Jicarilla
A Feast Day at Acoma
A Painted Tipi
The Rush Gatherer
The Three Chiefs
A Few Platinum Image Descriptions
Sunflower (Girl and Jar)- San Ildefonso, 1905
The women of the Pueblo tribe are known for their outstanding ability to balance various vessels on their heads for transport purposes. In this photograph, a Pueblo woman carries a large container on her head; this is made effortless by a fiber ring that rests between the jar and her head to protect her scalp and help to steady it. The design shown on the jar, illustrates the importance of the serpent cult in Tewa life.
The Three Chiefs - 1900
“The Three Chiefs” is, historically, arguably the single most important of Curtis’ 50,000 photographic images. The photograph was made in the summer of 1900 and is the key image from that critical, watershed period in Curtis’ life. It was during this short field trip to Montana with noted ethnographer George Bird Grinnell that Curtis first met Native Americans whose culture was still largely intact and who were also willing to share their religion, mythology, and personal lives with him. This brief encounter ignited Curtis’ passion to preserve a comprehensive record of Native American life. This two-week experience unalterably changed Curtis, and his life was never the same again. It is said that in making this image of three tribal leaders in their traditional garb on a typical upland prairie, that Curtis spent three days looking for the perfect combination of riders, sky, and land.
A Painted Tipi- Assiniboin
“The Painted Tipi-Assiniboin” is a photograph of a very important part of Native American life, their living quarters. The Tipi, as shown in this photograph, was considered a larger version of where family and guests not only spent time together, but also cooked meals. There was a very specific order to the placement of family and friends within the Tipi; The family and guests sat along the edge of the Tipi in a circle with the place of honor being at the extreme rear of the dwelling. The spot of honor, was always occupied by either the guest of honor or the head of the family. The Tipi was typically made up of tanned buffalo hides and then painted to reflect traits of the specific tribes.
The Rush Gatherer – 1910
This is one of Curtis’ most beautiful and compelling images. This photograph was taken on Flathead Lake in Northern Montana and the Native American pictured is from the Kutenai tribe. The Kutenai were semi-nomadic and occupied portions of southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, moving seasonally to follow food sources. The Kutenai usually crafted their canoes of pine bark, but as illustrated here, occasionally made canoes of fresh elk hides stretched over a framework of fir strips. The rushes gathered in mountain lakes were dried and strung together into mats, lodge coverings, and other utilitarian items.
Chris’ personal work from a Mexican village of San Andres Chicahuzxla, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1972
The North American Indian - The Custom Limited Edition
Each Custom Edition Set includes complete, full-size recreations of all twenty original Text Volumes. These quarto-size (123/4” x 93/4”) Volumes comprise 1,511 photographs and illustrations, and 5,023 pages of text, including extensive transcriptions of Native languages and music, creating a rich, unique and detailed artistic and ethnographic record of over eighty distinct North American tribal groups.
The photographs, including over thirty in color, are printed one sheet at a time and have a richness that is especially appealing to contemporary readers. The original twenty Portfolios, comprising 723 photogravure plates, are also beautifully reproduced one sheet at a time, and are presented in five oversized Portfolio Volumes. Text layout, design and readability have also been significantly improved throughout.
Fine materials and craftsmanship are evident throughout the Republication Sets. Each Volume and Portfolio Volume is bound in three-quarter bonded leather with archival linen-finished cloth and top edge gilding. The gilt spine stamping on the Portfolio Volumes is a unique design created specifically for the Custom Edition.
The Custom Edition is believed to be the largest republication project in North American publishing history. We are investing over 10,000 hours in research, typesetting, layout, prototyping and proofing. Overall, we expect the completion of the project will require approximately 35,000 hours and we have enlisted specialists in eight diverse fields. Our goal is to create Sets at consistently high level of craftsmanship, improved text layout and readability, with beautiful reproductions of Curtis’ photographs. The Custom Edition is limited to an edition of 75.
Individual Volumes available:
Portfolio I-IV we have 11 left
Portfolio IX - XII we have 1 left
Volume I we have 6 left
Volume II we have 12 left
Volume I we have 6 left
Volume III we have 8 left
Volume IV we have 22 left
Volume V we have 1 left
Volume VI we have 3 left
Volume VI we have 3 left
Volume XII we have 1 left
Volume XIII we have 4 left
Volume XIX we have 1 left
The North American Indian. 20 volumes (1907–1930)
• Volume 1 (1907): The Apache. The Jicarilla, The Navaho.
• Volume 2 (1908): The Pima. The Papago. The Qahatika. The Mohave. The Yuma. The Maricopa. The Walapai. The Havasupai. The Apache-Mohave, or Yavapai.
• Volume 3 (1908): The Teton Sioux. The Yanktonai. The Assiniboin.
• Volume 4 (1909): The Apsaroke, or Crows. The Hidatsa.
• Volume 5 (1909): The Mandan. The Arikara. The Atsina.
• Volume 6 (1911): The Piegan. The Cheyenne. The Arapaho.
• Volume 7 (1911): The Yakima. The Klickitat. Salishan tribes of the interior. The Kutenai.
• Volume 8 (1911): The Nez Perces. Wallawalla. Umatilla. Cayuse. The Chinookan tribes.
• Volume 9 (1913): The Salishan tribes of the coast. The Chimakum and the Quilliute. The Willapa.
• Volume 10 (1915): The Kwakiutl.
• Volume 11 (1916): The Nootka. The Haida.
• Volume 12 (1922): The Hopi.
• Volume 13 (1924): The Hupa. The Yurok. The Karok. The Wiyot. Tolowa and Tututni. The Shasta. The Achomawi. The Klamath.
• Volume 14 (1924): The Kato. The Wailaki. The Yuki. The Pomo. The Wintun. The Maidu. The Miwok. The Yokuts.
• Volume 15 (1926): Southern California Shoshoneans. The Diegueños. Plateau Shoshoneans. The Washo.
• Volume 16 (1926): The Tiwa. The Keres.
• Volume 17 (1926): The Tewa. The Zuñi.
• Volume 18 (1928): The Chipewyan. The Western Woods Cree. The Sarsi.
• Volume 19 (1930): The Indians of Oklahoma. The Wichita. The Southern Cheyenne. The Oto. The Comanche. The Peyote Cult.
• Volume 20 (1930): The Alaskan Eskimo. The Nunivak. The Eskimo of Hooper Bay. The Eskimo of King Island. The Eskimo of Little Diomede Island. The Eskimo of Cape Prince of Wales. The Kotzebue Eskimo. The Noatak. The Kobuk. The Selawik.
VASH GON-JICARILLA BRONZE
There are 6 in inventory Approx 20x13”
INVENTORY
Edward Curtis Photo-lithos
Canyon de Chelly – 9
Three Chiefs – 175
Rush Gatherer – 175
Oasis in the Badlands – 175
Vanishing Race – 175
Crater Lake – 175
Bodyguard Series – Luis González Palma
Goldtones in Daguerreotype cases
Bodyguard #1 – 5 Goldtones
Bodyguard #2 – 4 Goldtones
Bodyguard #3 – 4 Goldtones
Bodyguard #4 – 4 Goldtones
Bodyguard #5 – 4 Goldtones
Bodyguard #6– 3 Goldtones
Bodyguard #7 – 5 Goldtones
Bodyguard #8 – 5 Goldtones
Gampi Tissue Prints
Bodyguard #1 – 5 prints
Bodyguard #2 – 5 prints
Bodyguard #3 – 5prints
Bodyguard #4 – 4 prints
Bodyguard #5 – 5 prints
Bodyguard #6 – 5 prints
Bodyguard #7 – 5prints
Bodyguard #8– 4 prints
Solas...Calladamente (Alone... In Silence) 1 + 2, ca. 1990
Assemblages with silver emulsion on watercolor paper, wood, stamped tin and colored glass. Only 1 each
Edward Curtis Photo-lithos
Canyon de Chelly – 9
Three Chiefs – 175
Rush Gatherer – 175
Oasis in the Badlands – 175
Vanishing Race – 175
Crater Lake – 175
Contemporary Platinum Prints
Medicine Crow – 1
Povi-tamu “Sunflower” – 4
A Son of the Desert – 3
Vash Gon – Jicarilla – 2
The Potter – 1
A Heavy Load – 1
Three Chiefs – 3
Feast Day at Acoma – 2
The Rush Gatherer – 2
A Painted Tipi – 2
Individual The North American Indian – The Custom
Limited Edition
Portfolio I-IV – 11
Portfolio IX - XII – 1
Volume I – 6
Volume II – 12
Volume I – 6
Volume III – 8
Volume IV – 22
Volume V – 1
Volume VI – 3
Volume VI – 3
Volume XII – 1
Volume XIII – 4
Volume XIX – 1
Vash Gon – Jicarilla Bronze – 6
Chris’ personal Work #1 - #11 – made to order
Excerpt from Chris’ obituary:
After graduating with a degree in photography and film from the University of Minnesota, a professor invited him to Oaxaca, Mexico to help make a film. After taking five months to save up to buy a 10–year-old VW Beetle, camera lenses and film, Cardozo made the trek across the continent, finally arriving only to be informed that his professor had decided not to make the film. The curt apology was, “ I should have written.”
Notwithstanding, Cardozo stayed on in the remote Mexican village of San Andres Chicahuzxla, Oaxaca, Mexico. He spent six sometimes dangerous months in 1972 documenting a place and people who were losing their way. “ Chris’ sepia-toned images of the villagers prompted a friend to observe that his photos were remarkably similar to Edward Curtis’ work. His curiosity peaked, Cardozo furiously studied, acquired, exhibited and replicated Curtis’ work making for a career spanning more than fifty years. He thus became the foremost authority on Curtis. Cardozo came to realize “I was led to this. This was my soul’s purpose. Why I ended up on Earth at this particular time was to make this work available to people.”
– Mark Schwartz