The Shadow Catcher, Edward Sherif Curtis; North American Indian

The Shadow Catcher

Edward Sheriff Curtis The North American Indian

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Edward S. Curtis American, 1868-1952 Self Portrait, 1899

The Shadow Catcher

Edward Sheriff Curtis

The North American Indian

Baker Schorr is delighted to present an exhibition of photogravures from Edward Sheriff Curtis’ 20-volume work, The North American Indian. These powerful and hauntingly beautiful images illuminate the rich culture, religion, and way of life of numerous North American tribes and reflect the profound mutual respect shared by Curtis and the Native Americans he photographed.

From 1900 to 1930 the American photographer, Edward Sheriff Curtis traveled and lived among more than eighty American Indian tribal groups west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. His photographs captured their authentic ways of life producing 40,000 extremely fragile glass plate negatives that were often damaged, 10,000 wax cylinders of recordings and 4,000 pages of anthropological text.

From his dedicated efforts culminated the publication of The North American Indian. This publication consists of twenty volumes of text each containing seventy-five small hand-pulled photogravures and twenty portfolios with thirty-six large format hand-pulled photogravures to accompany each volume. This is the most extensive and expensive photographic project ever undertaken in the history of photography.

For thirty years Curtis would pack his cameras and supplies needed for months traveling by foot and by horses with covered wagons deep into Indian territories. His personal reputation and relationship within each tribe was a trusted one and his respect for them was legendary. They called him “The Shadow Catcher.” Curtis worked out of the belief that the American Indians were “a vanishing race” that desperately needed to be documented before “White” expansion and the Federal Government destroyed what remained of their native ways of life.

With the backing of men like J. Pierpont Morgan and President Theodore Roosevelt and at great expense to his family life and his health, Curtis’s calling and dedication never ceased. He lived among dozens of tribes and devoted his life to the definitive and monumental work, The North American Indian. The New York Herald hailed it as “The most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the King James Bible.”

Kiowa novelist M. Scott Momaday wrote,

“We are living in a time in history when our humanity can seem all but lost, which makes this body of work all the more poignant.”

May we share in that celebration of humanity.

Kathryn Schorr Baker Schorr Fine Art, Midland, Texas February, 2022

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The North American Indian Tweedweave Photogravure Portfolios The story of Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian is well known. Curtis began the most ambitious photographic publishing project of the twentieth century with the hope of completing 500 sets, each comprising 723 large-format photogravures in 20 portfolios and 20 text volumes with 1,506 small-format photogravures. Starting in 1900 and working until 1930, the sheer scope of the project all but destroyed his business, family and finally his health. In the end, only 300 sets were printed with approximately 272 finished and sold.

What happened after Curtis’ bankruptcy is lesser known. In 1935 the remaining photogravures and copper printing plates were sold to Charles Lauriat, a Boston rare book dealer. The inventory included 17 complete sets of portfolios 13-20.

In 1966, the master printmaker Deli Sacilotto was approached about printing 17 sets of portfolio 1-12 from the original plates in Lauriat’s possession, to complete the sets. This rare printing of the first 12 portfolios was done on a hand-made paper with a woven texture, known by collectors as the Tweedweave Edition, and is featured in this exhibition.

In this collection, each large format photogravure sheet measures 22 x 17 ½ inches, is mounted archivally, and framed in a custom hand-made wooden frame measuring 25 x 20 ½ inches.

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Bear’s Belly Arikara, 1908 Volume V - Plate 150

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The Medicine Man, 1907 Volume III - Plate 76 Slow Bull, Ogalala Tribe

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Red Cloud - Ogalala, 1905 Volume III - Plate 103 Chief of the Ogalala Tribe

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The Prairie Chief, 1907 Volume III - Plate 88 Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota Sioux Tribe

“The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other... Consequently, the information that is to be gathered for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once, or the opportunity will be lost for all time.”

--Edward Sheriff Curtis

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Jack Red Cloud Ogalala, 1907 Volume III - Plate 81 Son of Chief Red Cloud

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Black Eagle Assiniboin, 1908 Volume III - Plate 101

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An Oasis in the Badlands, 1905 Volume III - Plate 80 Sub Chief Red Hawk Sioux Tribe

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Bread - Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 121 Apsaroke Crow Chief

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Apsaroke War - Chief, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 112

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Kutenai Duck Hunter, 1910 Volume VII - Plate 249 Northwest Tribe

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Bull Chief Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 128

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Shot in the Hand Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 188

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Little Sioux Arikara, 1908 Volume V - Plate 155

Atsina Camp, 1908 Volume V - Plate 175

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Medicine Crow Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 117

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Red Wing Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 20

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Arikara Medicine Fraternity The Prayer, 1908 Volume V - Plate 164 Northwest Tribe

The Rush Gatherer Arikara, 1908 Volume V - Plate 160 Northwest Tribe

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Fish Shows Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 135

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Lone Tree Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 143

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Flathead Camp on Jocko River, 1910 Volume VII - Plate 232

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Mosquito Hawk Assiniboin, 1908 Volume III - Plate 102

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Masked Dancers Qagyuhl, 1941 Volume X - Plate 358 Northwest Tribe

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A Flathead Chief, 1910 Volume VII - Plate 229

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Two Whistles Apsaroke, 1908 Volume IV - Plate 111

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The Rush Gatherer Kutenai, 1910 Volume VII - Plate 255 Northwest Tribe

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Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon Qagyuhl, 1941 Volume X - Plate 358

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Lummi Type, 1899 Volume IX - Plate 320 Lummi Tribe

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Puget Sound Baskets, 1912 Volume IX - Plate 309

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Watching the Dancers, 1906 40

Volume XII - Plate 405 Hopi Tribe

Evening in Hopi Land, 1906 Volume XII - Plate 407

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Kwakiutl House Frame, 1941 Volume X - Plate 343 Northwest Tribe

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Quilcene Boy, 1912 Volume IX - Plate 303 Northwest Tribe

“Curtis’ are some of the most glorious prints ever made in the history of the photographic medium.”

--Clark Worswick, Curator of Photography

for the Peabody Essex Museum

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Evening on Puget Sound, 1899 Volume IX - Plate 312 Northwest Tribe

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Arikara Girl, 1908 Volume V - Plate 165

The Sundancer, 1907 Volume III - Plate 83 The North American Indian (opposite page)

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