Looking Back at the Cargill Exhibition

PRESENTS

THE SACRED LEGACY速 OF EDWARD S. CURTIS AND THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN

Taos Water Girls, 1905

www.edwardcurtis.com

LOOKING BACK AT THE

CARGILL GALLERY EXHIBITION The “Beauty, Heart and Spirit” Exhibition just closed after a two month run. We have been told that it was the most successful, the most popular and the most highly attended exhibition in the history of the Gallery. We wanted to thank those who attended and share some imagery and feedback from the show.

Cargill Gallery Installation

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Introductory Panel for “Beauty, Heart and Spirit” Exhibition

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Cargill Gallery Installation

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Display case of photographs made by Christopher Cardozo and objects collected in 1973, in a remote Mexican Indian Village. This experience led directly to Cardozo’s discovery of the work of Edward Curtis.

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Cargill Gallery Installation

Comment from the Cargill Gallery Guestbook

Cargill Gallery Installation

Cargill Gallery Installation

SACRED LEGACY The purpose of this Exhibition is to honor and celebrate our Native peoples, their lives, their history, and their culture as well as the beauty and power of Edward Curtis’ photography.

Over one hundred years ago, the American photographer Edward Sherriff Curtis set out on a monumental quest to make an unprecedented, comprehensive record of the North American Indian. During a thirty-year period he produced 40,000-50,000 photographs of Native People from over eighty different tribal groups. Curtis’ mission was to safeguard and preserve their ‘sacred legacy’ by creating a lasting record of their lives in photographs, film, sound, and text. This was a highly collaborative process and the Native people were active co-creators in preserving this record for future generations. Curtis was a witness and messenger as much as a co-creator. Today this work stands as a landmark in the history of photography, book publishing, ethnography, and the American West.

Viewed in its entirety, Curtis’ work presents an historical record of enormous importance. Edward S. Curtis and his Native co-creators preserved for future generations an important era in American history and provided a powerful opportunity to understand many elements of the American Indian experience.

Perhaps the most important legacy of Curtis’s monumental accomplishment is the expression of an extraordinary and deeply felt empathy and understanding of the personal, emotional, and spiritual lives of the American Indian. The work’s core message is one of beauty, heart, and spirit. In these respects, this collaborative body of work is unique and unparalleled.

Edward S. Curtis in the field c. 1910