Edward Curtis Intended to be a five-year project, The North American Indian became a 30-year endeavor as Edward Curtis visited over 80 tribes west of the Mississippi and into Canada, taking over 40,000 photographs. A monumental undertaking made possible by the initial backing of J. Pierpont Morgan, Curtis’s publication captured what he believed was a “vanishing race” in the face of forced assimilation and allotment by the United States government. What was aimed to be a comprehensive and permanent record of North American tribes evolved into a blend of documentary and staged photography which helped found the archetypal image of the “Native American” that is still pervasive today. A proliferation of Curtis photogravures exists today alongside the rarer photographic formats of silver gelatin prints, platinum prints, and orotones. However, the vintage copper printing plates are one of the rarest offerings on the Curtis market. Of the thousands of vintage photogravures from The North American Indian on the market and in collections around the world, only a single photogravure plate was produced for each image. Offered alongside an orotone of one of Curtis’s most renowned images, The Rush Gatherer, Kutenai, these three works are the first small format printing plates by Curtis ever to be auctioned.
1157 Edward Curtis (American, 1868-1952), Kamagwaih-Cascade, c. 1910, copper printing plate and photogravure on Japan vellum $4,000-6,000
1154 Edward Curtis (American, 1868-1952), Zahadolzha-Navaho, c. 1904, copper printing plate and photogravure on Japanese tissue $4,000-6,000
1155 Edward Curtis (American, 1868-1952), Gaaskidi-Navaho, c. 1904, copper printing plate and photogravure on Japanese tissue $4,000-6,000
1156 Edward Curtis (American, 1868-1952), The Rush Gatherer, Kutenai, c. 1905, orotone $3,000-4,000