Edward S. Curtis

Discover the soul of American history. In thousands of breathtaking images, 19th-century photographer Edward S. Curtis’s unrivaled documentation of Native Americans creates a unique record of a long-lost era and the precious heritage of American indigenous culture.

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For over 30 years, photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868–1952) traveled the length and breadth of North America, seeking to record in words and images the traditional life of its vanishing indigenous inhabitants. Like a man possessed, he strove to realize his life’s work, which culminated in the publication of his encyclopedia The North American Indian. In the end, this monumental work comprised 20 textual volumes and 20 portfolios with over 2,000 illustrations. No other photographer has created a larger oeuvre on this theme, and it is Curtis, more than any other, who has crucially molded our conception of Native Americans. This book shows the photographer’s most impressive pictures and vividly details his journey through life, which led him not only into the prairies but also into the film studios of Hollywood.