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Jan 12, 2007

Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

1904

Edward S. Curtis

(American, 1868–1952)

America, 20th century

Platinum print, mercury-toned

Image: 31.5 x 41.8 cm (12 3/8 x 16 7/16 in.); Matted: 61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)

Gift of Kathryn Arns May in memory of Mary Moore Arns 1987.182

Location

not on view

Did you know?

This ancestral stronghold of the Navajo Nation, from which they were exiled from 1864 to 1868, is still owned by the tribe today.

Description

The soaring cliffs of Cañon de Chelly, one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in America, dwarf the Navajos riding in the midday Arizona sun in 1904. Edward S. Curtis’s images, though rooted in the documentary impulse, present a romanticized view of the past, one that he often staged to suggest an even earlier period. He had two sometimes-conflicting aims: to capture America’s vanishing Indigenous cultures but also to create photographic art.

Artist biography

Edward S. Curtis

Edward S. Curtis American, 1868 - 1952 Edward Sheriff Curtis, born near White Water, Wisconsin, was a well-established commercial photographer before he undertook his best known work shortly before the turn of the century. Working first as photographer for the Edward H. Harriman expedition in Alaska (1899), he later secured the endorsement of Theodore Roosevelt and the support of J. P. Morgan for an extensive anthropological and photographic study of Native Americans. Curtis's work from 1906 -- 20 resulted in The North American Indian and eventually generated 40,000 negatives, of which 1,200 were presented in gravure form in the 20 volumes and 20 accompanying portfolios of his study. Although his intentions were anthropological and scholarl -- to preserve the appearance and customs of a dying race -- Curtis nevertheless was affected by the artistic styles of his time. His portraits and tableaux were often strongly pictorialist, as their presentation on imported papers and in rarefied media such as orotone would suggest. His scientific aims were frequently undercut by a personal interpretation of his subjects, to whom he often supplied costumes and props. Time has proved Curtis, in this era of his career, equally an artist and an anthropologist. His later work in Los Angeles, which deserves further study, focused on Hollywood and the world of movies. T.W.F.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Written in black ink on recto: "Curtis [signed]"

Citations

Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 135

Curtis, Edward S., Frederick Webb Hodge, Theodore Roosevelt, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Christopher Cardozo. The North American Indian: Being a Series of Volumes Picturing and Describing the Indians of the United States and Alaska. 2017.

Exhibition history

CMA, February 7, 2010 - May 30, 2010: "The American Indian Image: Photographs by Edward S. Curtis and Zig Jackson," exhibited in the East Wing Photography Exhibition gallery.

CMA, February 24 - April 17, 1988: "Year in Review 1987," CMA Bulletin, 75 (February 1988), p. 66, no. 49.

CMA, July 10 - August 19, 1990: "The Camera," Classroom Level, no exhibition catalogue.

Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; January 3-May 23, 2001. "American Space: Landscape Photography, 1900-1950."

The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07) and Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittburgh, PA (10/3/2009 - 1/3/2010); "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", no exhibition catalogue.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (9/5/2015 - 1/17/2016); "Pictorialist Photography"

The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).

American Space: Landscape Photography 1900-1950. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 6-May 23, 2001).

Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007); Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, PA (October 3, 2009-January 3, 2010).

The American Indian Image: Photographs by Edward S. Curtis and Zig Jackson . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 30, 2010).

Shadows and Dreams: Pictorialist Photography in America. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 5, 2015-January 17, 2016).

Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Cañon de Chelly - Navaho|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.182|author=Edward S. Curtis|year=1904|access-date=28 September 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

Edward S. Curtis

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Description

Edward S. Curtis

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