Lot 152
Edward Sheriff Curtis (American, 1868-1952). "Tablita Woman Dancer - San Ildefonso" photogravure, 1905. Title, artist's name, date, and edition number printed below image. Artist's watermark at bottom of paper. Reprinted by Classic Gravure Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, ca. 1980. A vintage, limited edition, master print photograph, by Edward Curtis. In this startling piece - entitled "Tablita Woman Dancer" - Curtis captures the portrait of a San Ildefonso woman half-length, seated, facing front, and wearing an elaborate tablita headdress and long, beaded necklace. This piece was part of Edward Curtis' epic 20 volume project to document Native Americans threatened by Westward expansion in the United States entitled "The North American Indian" (1907-1930) - a masterwork that experts have estimated would cost more than $35 million to create today. Size of photo: 6.5" W x 9" H (16.5 cm x 22.9 cm); of sheet: 10.5" W x 12" H (26.7 cm x 30.5 cm); of frame: 21.5" W x 25.5" H (54.6 cm x 64.8 cm)
To learn more about Curtis' impressive undertaking, please read Gilbert King's article in Smithsonian Magazine. It opens as follows, with King brilliantly capturing Curtis' urgency and steadfast work ethic to document the indigenous peoples before expansion would potentially eclipse their cultures, "Year after year, he packed his camera and supplies - everything he'd need for months - and traveled by foot and by horse deep into the Indian territories. At the beginning of the 20th century, Edward S. Curtis worked in the belief that he was in a desperate race against time to document, with film, sound and scholarship, the North American Indian before white expansion and the federal government destroyed what remained of their natives' way of life. For thirty years, with the backing of men like J. Pierpont Morgan and former president Theodore Roosevelt, but at great expense to his family life and his health, Curtis lived among dozens of native tribes, devoting his life to his calling until he produced a definitive and unparalleled work, The North American Indian. The New York Herald hailed as 'the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible.'" ("Edward Curtis' Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans" by Gilbert King - Smithsonian Magazine March 21, 2012)
While Curtis has had his critics who have claimed that he romanticized the natives' existence, others have argued that he was ahead of his time and depicted them with dignity and respect. In her book entitled, "Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis" (Bison Books, 2005) Laurie Lawlor wrote, "When judged by the standards of his time, Curtis was far ahead of his contemporaries in sensitivity, tolerance and openness to Native American cultures and ways of thinking. He sought to observe and understand by going directly into the field."
This photogravure was reprinted by Classic Gravure Company in Santa Fe, New Mexico. During a 1972 auction, Classic Gravure acquired the original copper plates of Curtis's work from Charles E. Lauriat & Company in Boston. The company soon planned a reprint of Curtis's work that would be significantly more grand and close to the original than previous reprints. Excitingly, the company was being encouraged in this endeavor by Curtis's daughters Florence and Beth. Beaumont Newhall of Eastman House and Fred Eggan, an anthropologist, were recruited to write new introductions. The quality of the planned Classic Gravure edition might be fairly compared to Curtis's. The larger images would be reproduced on handmade acid-free paper containing Edward Curtis's signature as watermark, the leather portfolios holding them were to be gold-stamped, letterpress printing on archival paper would comprise the text volumes.
Provenance: private Louisville, Colorado, USA collection; ex-Solis collection, Denver, Colorado, USA, acquired September 6, 1998
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#189982
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Condition:
- Set behind glass in custom matte and frame; has not been examined outside of glass. Some slight wrinkling to paper and minor scuffs to frame, but photo is in very good overall condition with clear imagery. Suspension wire on verso for display.
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