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Original early 20th-century goldtone photograph by Edward S. Curtis, entitled ‘The Vanishing Race – Navaho,’ 13.5 x 10.5, depicting a group of Navajo riders on horseback receding into the distance through a canyon passage, printed from Curtis’s original 1904 negative. Conceived as a visual metaphor for what Curtis saw as the central theme of his life’s work, the image presents a quiet, elegiac procession into shadow, embodying his belief that Native American cultures were undergoing profound and irreversible change. Lower right bears Curtis’s studio signature, inherent to the original negative. Presented in its original Curtis-designed ‘batwing’ frame, to an overall size of 19 x 16.25; the frame backing bears the original price label from The Curtis Studio. In fine condition, with some wear and chipping to the frame. The image was published as the first plate in Portfolio I of The North American Indian. Curtis wrote of the scene: ‘The thought which this picture is meant to convey is that the Indians as a race, already shorn in their tribal strength and stripped of their primitive dress, are passing into the darkness of an unknown future. Feeling that the picture expresses so much of the thought that inspired the entire work, the author has chosen it as the first of the series.’
Curtis conducted extensive fieldwork among Native American tribes in the early twentieth century, ultimately producing The North American Indian, a monumental project undertaken with the financial backing of J. Pierpont Morgan and the encouragement of President Theodore Roosevelt. Issued between 1907 and 1930, the work comprised twenty volumes of text and twenty accompanying portfolios of photogravures. ‘The Vanishing Race – Navaho,’ which opens Portfolio I, became Curtis’s most widely recognized image and a defining statement of the project’s conceptual framework.
Curtis’s orotones, or goldtones, were distinct from the portfolio photogravures. Instead of printing on paper, he created images on glass plates backed with gold-toned metallic particles, producing a warm, luminous effect with a depth and richness unique to the process. The surface lends a remarkable sense of atmosphere, particularly suited to this composition, where figures gradually dissolve into the surrounding landscape. Today, the image remains one of Curtis’s most sought-after works and has been recognized among the most influential photographs ever made.
The Western Americana auction of Jochen Zeitz.
