The Masterpiece
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The North American Indian
A Photographic and Ethnographic Record

The photographic work of Edward S. Curtis both defines the romantic ideal portrayed in American Indian imagery and captures the turmoil of Native life a century ago.

Curtis’ goal was not just to photograph, but to document, American Indian culture before traditional life disappeared. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907: “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.”

Over a 30-year period Curtis interviewed hundreds of tribal members, took more than 40,000 photographs, and made more than 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of their music. He lived with the Indians in their camps and on reservations, and moored along their shores. He ate what they ate, endured extreme summer heat in the desert, and frigid winters on the Great Plains.

Curtis’ life work won support from such prominent figures as President Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan. When completed, The North American Indian consisted of 20 volumes of text, containing 75 photogravures. The work was sold by subscription between 1907 and 1930. Each volume was accompanied by a corresponding portfolio containing at least 36 large-format photogravures.

Of all the historic photographs of the American Indian, Curtis’ are the most recognizable. His images of chiefs in war bonnets defined the stereotype of the American Indian. While Curtis’ goal to honor and record the rich diversity of cultures that made up Native America was contrary to the promotion of a single image type, Curtis found that it was the romantic portraits of Native American men and idyllic landscapes that captured the fantasies of the American public. It was with these images that Curtis marketed his lectures and individual print sales to help bankroll his ultimate vision—a photographic and ethnographic record of the more than 80 tribes living in the American West at the turn of the century.