The Women Collection

THE WOMEN COLLECTION

Mosa – Mohave

A Zuni Girl, 1903 Platinum Print On Original Vintage Mount On the Cover: Mosa – Mohave, 1903 Vintage Photogravure

THE WOMEN COLLECTION Edward Curtis devoted thirty years of his life to creating an unparalleled record of beauty, dignity, spirituality, and Native American life. It remains one of the largest and most important bodies of work created in the history of the photographic medium. A century later, Curtis’s profound and powerful imagery continues to inspire viewers. Today he is the most widely exhibited and collected fine art photographer in the world.

The Women Collection represents the distilled essence of Curtis’ photographs of Native women, their families, and their daily life.

The Women Collection is an unprecedented offering.

The Collection is the culmination of over three decades of scholarship and collecting by Christopher Cardozo.

Cardozo is widely considered to be the world’s leading Curtis authority as well as the foremost collector of Curtis’ work.

The Women Collection is unique and it would be impossible to replicate today. The vast majority of the prints have been held by Cardozo or his company for a decade or more. The great success of his book, The Women, and an exhibition on the same theme inspired Cardozo to create this extraordinary collection.

For the first time in forty years of collecting, Cardozo is de-accessioning a large and significant group of vintage Curtis photographs from his private collection, to help make The Women Collection possible.

Every print in The Collection has been carefully selected and many have been professionally conserved. Cardozo is not aware of any other collection ever offered for sale that has such high and consistent standards for print quality and print condition. In addition, every cultural/geographic region in which Curtis photographed is represented in the Collection, as is every style of Curtis’ photography, including portrait, landscape, still life, etc.

Comprising approximately four hundred vintage photographs and related objects, The Women Collection offers many possibilities. First and foremost, it was created to appeal to the serious collector or institution, that appreciates the power of photographs and the subject matter and the importance of preserving this unique Collection for history. The Collection also represents an important opportunity to create an unprecedented education and exhibition program. Lastly, the Collection was designed to be a legacy that will endure for many generations and be a unique holding for any private or public collection.

Everything that gives birth is female. When men begin to understand the relationships of the universe that women have always known, the world will begin to change for the better. —Lorraine Canoe (Mohawk)

Watching the Dancers, 1906 Vintage Photogravure

Póvi–Támu, 1905 Platinum Print

A Zuni Woman, 1903 Vintage Photogravure

The Apache Reaper Platinum Print On Original Vintage Mount

Evening at the Well Platinum Print On Original Vintage Mount

“…Edward Curtis’s project was unique for its time in that it was conceived as an attempt to bridge that gap between the two worlds. His purpose in making The North American Indian was to represent, as completely as possible, his vision of a network of cultures that was being inexorably destroyed -- to do so in such a way as to render vividly what he believed to be the spirit of those cultures, thus helping to keep it alive...”

— A.D. Coleman

Lummi Type, 1899 Vintage Photogravure

A Chief’s Daughter, 1914 Vintage Photogravure

A Hopi Mother, 1921 Vintage Photogravure

“When I look into the eyes of the women photographed by Edward Curtis, there is an exchange, there is intensity of regard. Curtis mastered the art of making his subject so dimensional, so present, so complete, that it is to me as though I am looking at the women through a window, as though they are really there in the print and in the paper, looking back at me. This is the genius and the gift of the work. The women photographed by Curtis are so alive...”

“Women’s work is celebrated in Curtis’ photographs—women grind corn, bake bread, make clay vessels, doctor each other, pick berries, haul wood and water, gather reeds, dig clams. These images of women working are among my favorites, for they are more practical than elegiac, yet entirely harmonious, and they are often the most sensual of Curtis’ works.”

—Louise Erdrich

The Pima Woman Vintage Photogravure

Sioux Girl, 1907 Vintage Photogravure

Untitled — Plateau Woman Goldtone Printing-Out Paper Print

Quinault Female Type, 1913 Vintage Photogravure

Mohave Potter, 1908 Vintage Photogravure

Jicarilla Maiden, 1907 Platinum Print

Taos Water Girls, 1905 Platinum Print

The Potter, 1922 Goldtone

The Piki Maker, 1906 Goldtone

At the Old Well, 1904 Goldtone

Women of the Desert, 1906 Goldtone

“In the woman is vested the standard of morals of our people. She is the silent but telling power behind all of life’s activities.”

—Kent Nerburn

Wisham Female Type, 1910 Cyanotype

Selections from a thirty-five piece ephemera collection.

At the Trysting Place, 1921 Platinum Print On Original Vintage Mount

SUMMARY The Women Collection is unique and unprecedented in its subject matter, scope and depth. It contains approximately four hundred vintage prints and related objects, including many of Curtis’ most iconic images of women.

The Collection is the distilled essence of Curtis’ photography of Native Women. Every important medium or process Curtis is known to have worked in is represented, as well as all of the cultural and geographic areas Curtis photographed. Print quality and condition are extraordinary.

The Collection is the result of over three decades of commitment by Christopher Cardozo to Curtis’ work and would be impossible to replicate today.

Photograph by Edward Steichen, 1903

“I like a man who attempts the impossible.” —J.P. Morgan

Photograph by Edward Curtis, c. 1905

“In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose pictures are pictures, not merely photographs; Whose work has far more than mere accuracy, because it is truthful...he is putting his work in permanent form; for our generation offers the last chance for doing what Mr. Curtis has done...But Mr. Curtis, because of the singular combination of qualities with which he has been blessed, and because of his extraordinary success in making and using his opportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as far as we can see, no other man could do.”

—President Theodore Roosevelt

“It’s such a big dream, I can’t see it all.” —Edward S. Curtis

Edward S. Curtis Self-Portrait, 1899

THE WOMEN COLLECTION PRICING INFORMATION

I. Vintage Photogravures

1. Porfolio Photogravures (138 prints, 106 tissue)

2. Volume-Sized Photogravures (178 prints, 83 tissue) II. Vintage Platinum Prints

1. Large Prints (9)

2. Small Prints (16)

$178,000 $117,500

III. Vintage Goldtones (4)

$82,500

IV. Vintage Silver Prints

1. Large Prints (4)

2. Small Prints (16)

V. Plate Covers (10)

1. Plus five matching gravures VI. Ephemera Collection (23 objects)

$601,980 $78,475

$20,500 $52,800

$41,700 $26,675

Collection Total $1,200,130 Current fair market value as a collection:

$850,000 - $1,000,000

Going to Camp, 1908 Platinum Print On Original Vintage Mount