Embassy Events

Exhibit of American Indian Photo's Debuts in Košice

Edward Curtis and The North American Indian

“It’s such a big dream, I can’t see it all.”

Edward Sheriff Curtis

In 1906 Edward Curtis began work on a project that would consume the next twenty-four years of his life. Yet Curtis had no way of knowing then that he was embarking on an odyssey that would have unforeseen consequences: his wife would divorce him, he would lose his family, his financial success, and his physical and emotional health—all in the pursuit of his big dream. With the assistance and patronage of several preeminent individuals, including J. P. Morgan, Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, and the kings of both England and Belgium, Curtis succeeded in creating a photo-ethnographic study, The North American Indian,New York Herald said that it was the most gigantic undertaking since the publication of the King James Edition of the Bible. that was widely hailed as the finest and most ambitious set of limited-edition books ever made in America by a single man. In 1911, the

J. P. Morgan’s generous support, however, was a double-edged sword. It gave Curtis enough money to begin the project, but also dissuaded other potential patrons from supporting it. Morgan’s contributions covered only about a third of the final cost, forcing Curtis to struggle incessantly to raise funds. In today’s dollars, the project required nearly thirty-five million dollars. Of a projected five hundred sets, fewer than three hundred were actually produced, and only two hundred fourteen were sold during Curtis’s involvement in the project.

During the project, Cutis made nearly fifty thousand negatives and produced ten thousand wax cylinder recordings of Native languages and music. He filmed the first, and some of the most extensive, moving-picture footage ever made of Native Americans. The North American Indian was a twenty-volume, twenty-portfolio set of books hand-bound in leather, with hand-set letter-press text and more than 2,200 original, hand-pulled photogravure prints, all printed on handmade, imported etching stock. A number of these original, complete sets can still be found in both the United States and Europe.

Interest in Curtis’s work has grown dramatically over the past several decades. Today complete sets of The North American Indian are worth well over $1 million, a thousand times what a set would have sold for in the 1960s. That Curtis, a man of humble background, was able to crate his massive landmark publication makes his accomplishments all the more extraordinary.