Valley Fine Arts/Courtesy photo
Valley Fine Art in collaboration with The Curtis Legacy Foundation is holding an event on Friday and Saturday to premiere their new exhibit based on the book “Edward S. Curtis: Unpublished Plains: Photographs, Memoirs, Conversations with Native Friends.” The event includes a meet and greet with John Graybill, Edward Curtis’ great-grandson, and his wife Colleen.
When Edward Curtis began photographing Indigenous peoples in the early 1900s, he had only six years of classroom education and no formal training in art, history, science, or other academic disciplines. Despite this, he became one of the 20th century’s most famous photographers and ethnologists. Today he is remembered for his twenty-volume masterpiece, “The North American Indian,” a publication that took nearly three decades to complete.
It is speculated that Curtis took 40,000 images during his career; however, only 2,234 were included in his magnum opus. Thousands of photographs did not make it into Curtis’ books; many were never seen by anyone other than the photographer and his assistant. Many of these photographs were packed away; the boxes were stored in the back of closets or stashed in attics and basements as this innocuous piece of history was passed down through Curtis’ descendants. When Edward Curtis’ great-grandson, John Graybill, became the proprietor of those boxes of forgotten photographs, he recognized both their beauty and the history they contained. These unpublished images, encompassing both special events and everyday life and ranging from Alaska to Oklahoma, are featured in the upcoming exhibition and corresponding book, “Unpublished Plains: Photographs, Memoirs, Conversations with Native Friends”.
The exhibit, premiering at the Buena Vista Heritage Museum, will feature more than just a selection of photographs. While the photos remain at the heart of the project, the exhibit strives to blend aesthetic and educational experiences. Storyboards will accompany the photographs, offering both descriptions of the different tribes represented and commentary from various current Great Plains tribal citizens.
The exhibit will also include a sneak preview of CLF’s Descendant Project. What started as an attempt to track down descendants of the Native Americans documented initially by Edward Curtis has blossomed into an endeavor that blends Curtis’ 20th-century photography with current 21st-century technology to deliver the Native voices of today. Utilizing an app on their smartphone, visitors will scan the portraits of these descendants, giving them access to interview clips with those people. Through this, visitors will be able to hear stories directly from Native voices, even when speakers aren’t present in the museum.
Visit https://www.valleyfineart.com for the full schedule of events.
