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Edward S. Curtis’s life and work
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This site includes Edward S. Curtis’s biography, photos, online articles, and more.
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The World Wisdom website features an Edward S. Curtis resource page
that includes many of Curtis' writings, our books that feature his work,
a chronology of his life and work, links, and more. This website also includes an
Edward S. Curtis online image gallery displaying many of his remarkable photos.
Born in 1868 near Whitewater, Wisconsin, Edward Sheriff Curtis became one of America’s finest photographers and ethnologists. When the Curtis family moved to Port Orchard, Washington in 1887, Edward’s gift for photography led him to an investigation of the Indians living on the Seattle waterfront. His portrait of Chief Seattle’s daughter, Princess Angeline, won Curtis the highest award in a photographic contest. In 1898, whilst hiking on Mount Rainier, Curtis met George Bird Grinnell, a famed anthropologist and historian of the Cheyenne Indians.
Inspired by Grinnell, Edward S. Curtis devoted 30 years of photographing and documenting over eighty tribes west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. During his time amongst the Crow Indians, they honored him with the name Auk-ba-axua Balat Duchay, “One Body Image Taker”. Upon its completion in 1930, Curtis’ opus, entitled The North American Indian, consisted of 20 volumes, each containing 75 hand-pressed photogravures and 300 pages of text. Each volume was accompanied by a corresponding portfolio containing at least 36 photogravures.
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World Wisdom books featuring the work of Edward S. Curtis:
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| The Selawik | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| The Kobuk | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| The Noatak | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| The Kotzebue Eskimo | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| Eskimo of Cape Prince of Wales | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| Eskimo of Little Diomede Island | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| Eskimo of King Island | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| Eskimo of Hooper Bay | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| The Nunivak | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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| The Alaskan Eskimo: Introduction | The North American Indian - Volume 20 | Curtis, Edward | | American Indian |
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"In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose pictures are pictures, not merely photographs; whose work has far more than mere accuracy, because it is truthful.…Mr. Curtis, because of the singular combination of qualities with which he has been blest, and because of his extraordinary success in making and using his opportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as far as we can see, no other man could do. He is an artist who works out of doors and not in the closet.…He has lived on intimate terms with many different tribes of the mountains and the plains. He knows them as they hunt, as they travel, as they go about their various avocations on the March and in the camp. He knows their medicine men and sorcerers, their chiefs and warriors, their young men and maidens…"
—President Theodore Roosevelt, from the foreword to Curtis' multi-volume work The North American Indian
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