The Vanishing Race - Navaho
The Vanishing Race - Navaho
Artist
Edward Sheriff Curtis
(1868 - 1952)
Date1904
MediumPhotogravure
ClassificationsPrint
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2005.28.1
Accession number
2005.28.1
DescriptionPlate 1On View
Not on viewLabel TextFor Curtis, The North American Indian project was not only an opportunity to document tribal cultures in-depth, but also a chance to create a vast collection of artistic photographs. Well-versed in current trends, he employed the aesthetic of Pictorialism throughout this remarkable series. In the tradition of fine art photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, Curtis created tonally subtle images with highly poetic resonances.
In The Vanishing Race—Navaho, Curtis’s masterful use of light and shadow emphasizes the symbolic period of darkness he believed contemporary indigenous Americans were facing. The image depicts a line of Indians on horseback, represented as dim, faceless forms, as they move away from Curtis’s view. The departing figures are consumed by a heavy gloom that suggests the uncertainty of their future and the potential disappearance of their traditional ways of life. The soft focus enhances this sense of fading away.