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EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS, (American, 1868-1952), THE VANISHING RACE, NAVAHO, "Curtis" inscribed in n...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:5,000.00 - 7,000.00 USD
EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS, (American, 1868-1952), THE VANISHING RACE, NAVAHO,  Curtis  inscribed in n...
EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS
(American, 1868-1952)
THE VANISHING RACE, NAVAHO
"Curtis" inscribed in negative
in lower right
orotone
101/2 x 131/2 in. (26.7 x 34.3 cm)
1904
ESTIMATE: $5,000-7,000
<p>PROVENANCE
Private Collection, CONNECTICUT
<p>LITERATURE
Edward S. Curtis with Frederic Webb Hodge, ed., THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN, New York, conducted under the patronage of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1907-1930, Portfolio 1, pl. 1 (illustrated)
Ralph Andrews, CURTIS' WESTERN INDIANS: LIFE AND WORKS OF EDWARD S. CURTIS, Seattle, Superior Publishing Company, 1962, frontispiece (illustrated)
Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Baesen, VISIONS OF A VANISHING RACE, New York, T.Y. Crowell, 1976, p. 18 (illustrated)
Barbara Davis, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE SHADOW CATCHER, San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1985, p. 90 (illustrated)
Chris Cardozo, ed., NATIVE NATIONS: FIRST AMERICANS AS SEEN BY EDWARD S. CURTIS, Boston, Bulfinch Press, 1993, p. 123 (illustrated)
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN, Cologne, Taschen, 2001, p. 36 (illustrated)
This is the first plate in Curtis's 20-volume encyclopedia THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN, produced between 1907 and 1930. According to this text, "The thought which this picture is meant to convey is that the Indians as a race, already shorn of their tribal strength and stripped of their primitive dress, are passing into the darkness of an unknown future. Feeling that the picture expresses so much of the thought that inspired the entire work, the author has chosen it as the first of the series."
An orotone is an image printed from a negative onto a glass plate coated with gelatin silver emulsion. The back of the glass plate is painted with gold mixed with banana oil or bronze powders mixed with resin, and lends the image a golden appearance.