Photographers To Know: Edward S. Curtis

Hopi Grinding Grain, c.1906, by Edward S. Curtis

Edward Sheriff Curtis, an American photographer and ethnologist, lived from February 19, 1868 when he was born on a farm near Whitewater, Wisconsin until he passed away from a heart attack at the home of his daughter in Los Angeles on October 19, 1952. His photography is known under the name of Edward S. Curtis. His work focused on the landscape of the American West and on various Native American tribal people in that landscape. Sometimes referred to as the “Shadow Catcher”, Curtis traveled the United States to document and record the ways of life of Native Americans through photographs and audio recordings.

While Curtis’ interest in photography started in his childhood, when he built his first camera, his career started in his early 20s when his family moved to Seattle, Washington. He started out by buying into an already existing photography studio with Rasmus Rothi as a half partner, but soon left to start his own studio with partner Thomas Guptill. Their new studio became Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers.

Curtis’ took his first Native American portrait in 1898 when he photographed the daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle, Kickisomlo. During this time period while hiking on Mt. Ranier, Curtis came upon a group of lost scientists – one of them was anthropologist and “expert” on Native Americans, George Bird Grinnell – with whom he became friends. By 1899, Curtis was appointed the official photographer of the Harriman Alaska Expedition, possibly because of that friendship. Grinnell became interested in Curtis’s photography and invited him to join an expedition to photograph people of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Montana in 1900.

In 1906, J.P. Morgan took an interest in his work and granted him $75,000 to produce a photographic series on the Native Americans. This was enough money in those days to hire a crew to help him with the travel and the work. The work produced was to be in 20 volumes of books containing 1,500 photographs. Morgan’s funds were to be dished out over five years and were meant to support only fieldwork for the photographic books – not for writing, editing, or production of the volumes.

In the end, there were 222 completed sets of photographs that were published. Curtis’ own goal was to document pre-colonization Native American life. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907 which emphasized the urgency needed in taking the images:

“The information that is to be gathered … respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost.”

Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Native American language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images, documenting members of over 80 tribes west of the Mississippi River. He recorded tribal lore and history, described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs. He wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders.

Curtis’ “The North American Indian” was a project that took 30 years to complete and was published between 1907 and 1930.

Curtis primarily used a Reversible Back Premo Camera – it shot dry plate glass negatives that he then chemically developed in the field.