Photographs documenting Native American Public Programs events, including images of Native American artists and examples of their work during demonstrations and lectures at the National Museum of Natural History. Photographs were mostly made by Smithsonian photographers, including Carl C. Hansen, Richard Strauss, Chip Clark, Laurie Minor-Penland, Eric Long, Alan Hart, Rick Vargas, Dane Penland, and Christina Taccone. Included are a large number of photographs of Don Tenoso (Hunkpapa), an artist-in-residence at the National Museum of Natural History, and performances by James Luna (Luiseno/Digueno), Guillermo Gomez-Pena (Chicano), and Coco Fusco. Crafts and arts depicted include beadwork, basket weaving, dollmaking, peyote fanmaking, weaving, hand games, quilting, clothing making, leatherwork, woodcarving, saddlemaking, sculpture, painting, story-telling, and performance art. There are also images of Dolores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Garcia (daughters of Acoma potter Lucy M. Lewis) and their pottery, Joallyn Archambault with artists, and the 1990 American Indian Theater Company reception.
Other depicted artists include Maynard White Owl Lavadour (Cayuse/Nez Perce), Evangeline Talshaftewa (Hopi), Lisa Fritzler (Crow), Marian Hanssen, Vanessa Morgan (Kiowa/Pima), Marty Good Bear (Mandan/Hidatsa), Katie Henio and Sarah Adeky (Navajo), Geneva Lofton and Lee Dixon (Luiseno), Chris Devers (Luiseno), Mary Good Bear (Mandan), Robert and Alice Little Man (Kiowa), Lisa Watt (Seneca), Jay McGirt (Creek), Bill Crouse (Seneca), Kevin Johnny-John (Onondaga), Rose Anderson (Pomo), Francys Sherman and Margaret Hill (Mono), Thelene Albert and Annie Bourke (White Mountain Apache), Bob Tenequer (Laguna), Jimmy Abeyeta (Navajo), Lou Ann Reed (Acoma), Melissa Peterson (Makah), Jennifer and Kallie Keams Musial (Navajo), Joyce Growing Thunder-Fogarty and Juanita Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux), David Neel (Kwakiutal), Mervin Ringlero (Pima), Jhon Goes-In-Center (Oglala), D. Montour (Delaware/Mohawk), Rikki Francisco (Pima), Annie Antone (Papago), Angie Reano-Owen (Santo Domingo Pueblo), Carol Vigil (Jemez), Gregg Baurland (Miniconjou), Greg Colfax (Makah), Lydia Whirlwind-Soldier (Sicangu Dakota), Martin Red Bear (Oglala), Michael Rogers (Paiute), Alta Rogers (Yurok/Paiute), Dorothy Stanley (Miwok), Lisa Little Chief (Dakota), Tom Haukaas (Sicangu Dakota), Nora Navanjo-Morsie (Santa Clara Tewa), Seneca Women's Singing Society, Molly Blankenship and Martha Ross (Eastern Cherokee), Julia Parker (Miwok/Pomo), Candy and Claudia Cellicion (Zuni), Sally and Lorraine Black (Navajo), Carmen Quinto-Plunkett (Tlingit), Ina McNeil (Hunkpapa), and Ellen and Faye Quandelancy (Zuni), and Rikki Francisco (Pima).
Biographical/Historical note:
Native American Public Programs was founded in 1989 as a part of the Department of Education in the National Museum of Natural History. Under the directorship of Aleta Ringlero, its main activity was the arranging of demonstrations by Native American artists and craftsmen in the exhibition areas of the museum.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 91-26
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Audio of James Luna's lecture for the Native American Public Programs office held in National Anthropological Archives in MS 7514.
Dolls made by Don Tenoso for the Native American Public Programs office held in Department of Anthropology collections in accession 390905.
Additional photographs of Tenoso held in the Smithsonian Institution Archives in SIA2009-2222 and 90-13726.
Photo Lot 91-26, Native American Public Programs photograph collection relating to Native American artists and art, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The Edward S. Curtis photogravure plates and proofs for The North American Indian include photogravure printing plates and associated proofs made from Curtis photographs and used in the publication of The North American Indian volumes 1-9 and 12-19. The bulk of the images are portraits, though there are also images of everyday items, ceremonial artifacts, and camps.
Scope and Contents:
The collection comprises 183 photogravure plates (101 folio and 82 octavo) and 96 associated proofs used in the printing of The North American Indian volumes 1-9 and 12-19. The original photographs used to make the photogravures were made circa 1903-1926 and the photogravure plates were made in 1907-1930. The bulk are portraits, though there are also images of everyday items, ceremonial artifacts, and camps. About half of the proofs in the collection are originals used for Curtis's publication, though the collection also includes proofs made in the process of later publication by the Classic Gravure Company (circa 1980). Vintage proofs include handwritten notes, likely made by Curtis Studio employees in Seattle and Los Angeles. Many of the photogravure plates do not have matching proofs; in particular, there are no proofs for the octavo plates.
Arrangement:
The plates and proofs are arranged by the volume of The North American Indian in which they were published. They are described in this finding aid by the caption and plate number with which they were published.
Biographical / Historical:
Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) was an American photographer best known for his monumental and now-controversial project, the twenty-volume publication The North American Indian. Here he sought to document in words and pictures the "vanishing race" of American Indians.
Born in Wisconsin in 1868, Edward Curtis grew up on his family's farm in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, from 1874 to 1887. In 1887, he and his father Johnson Curtis settled on a plot near what is now Port Orchard, Washington, and the rest of the family joined them the following year. When Johnson Curtis died within a month of the family's arrival, the burden of providing for his mother and siblings fell to 20-year-old Edward, and Edward set out to do so through his photography. In 1891, Curtis moved to the booming city of Seattle and bought into a joint photo studio with Rasmus Rothi. Less than a year later, he formed "Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers" with Thomas Guptill; the enterprise quickly became a premier portrait studio for Seattle's elite. In 1895, Curtis made his first "Indian photograph" depicting Princess Angeline, daughter of the chief for whom Seattle had been named. The following year he earned his first medal from the National Photographic Convention for his "genre studies."
In 1899, Edward Curtis joined the Harriman Alaska Expedition as official photographer, a position which allowed him to learn from anthropologists C. Hart Merriam and George Bird Grinnell while documenting the landscapes and peoples of the Alaskan coast. This expedition and the resulting friendship with Grinnell helped to foster Curtis's ultimate goal to "form a comprehensive and permanent record of all the important tribes of the United States and Alaska that still retain to a considerable degree their primitive customs and traditions" (General Introduction, The North American Indian). Curtis made several trips to reservations from 1900 to 1904, including a trip with Grinnell to Montana in 1900 and multiple trips to the Southwest, including the Hopi Reservation. He also hired Adolph Muhr, former assistant to Omaha photographer Frank A. Rinehart, to manage the Curtis studio in his absence, a decision which would prove more and more fruitful as Curtis spent less and less time in Seattle.
In 1906, Curtis struck a deal with financier J. P. Morgan, whereby Morgan would support a company – The North American Indian, Inc. – with $15,000 for five years, by which time the project was expected to have ended. Systematic fieldwork for the publication began in earnest that summer season, with Curtis accompanied by a team of ethnological researchers and American Indian assistants. Arguably the most important member of Curtis' field team was William Myers, a former newspaperman who collected much of the ethnological data and completed most of the writing for the project. The first volume, covering Navajo and Apache peoples, was published at the end of 1907, but already Morgan's funding was incapable of meeting Curtis's needs. Despite heaping praise from society's elite, Curtis spent much of his time struggling to find people and institutions willing to subscribe to the expensive set of volumes. After the initial five years, only eight of the proposed twenty volumes had been completed. Fieldwork and publication continued with the support of J. P. Morgan, but Curtis's home life suffered because of his prolonged absences.
In 1919, Curtis's wife Clara was awarded a divorce settlement which included the entire Curtis studio in Seattle. Exhausted and bankrupt, Edward Curtis moved with his daughter Beth Magnuson to Los Angeles, where they operated a new Curtis Studio and continued work on the volumes; volume 12 was published
in 1922. The constant financial strain forced Myers to leave the North American Indian team after volume 18 (fieldwork in 1926) and Curtis made his last trip to photograph and gather data for volume 20 in 1927. After the final volumes were published in 1930, Curtis almost completely faded from public notice until his work was "rediscovered" and popularized in the 1970s.
Curtis's "salvage ethnology," as scholar Mick Gidley describes it, was mildly controversial even during his life and has become ever more so as his legacy deepens. In his quest to photograph pre-colonial Indian life through a twentieth-century lens, he often manipulated and constructed history as much as he recorded it: he staged reenactments, added props, and removed evidence of twentieth-century influences on "primitive" life. Curtis's work continues to shape popular conceptions of American Indians and so, while problematic, his legacy--his vision of American Indian life--continues to be relevant.
Related Materials:
NMAI also holds Edward Curtis photographs documenting the Harriman Expedition (1899) as well as platinum prints and photogravures of the images published in The North American Indian.
The Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives holds Edward Curtis prints submitted for copyright (Photo Lot 59) as well as many of his original negatives, photographs, and papers.
Steve Kern donated photogravure plates to the Center for Creative Photography and the Seattle Art Museum at the same time that he donated this set to MAI.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Steven and Arlene Kern to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in 1984.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Pictorial works Search this
Genre/Form:
Photogravures
Photographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Edward S. Curtis photogravure plates and proofs for The North American Indian, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
This collection was processed with funding from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
This series includes eleven folio plates and seven octavo plates depicting vessels, baskets, mortar pits, and portraits of Kumeyaay (Diegueño), Northern Paiute (Paviotso), Kutzadika'a (Mono Paiute), Kupangaxwichem (Kupa/Cupeño), Serrano, and Washoe (Washo) men and women. It also has eleven proofs made by the North American Indian, Inc. One plate is covered by a substance or corrosion that obscurs the image.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Edward S. Curtis photogravure plates and proofs for The North American Indian, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
This collection was processed with funding from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
