Sacred Legacy Collection: The Highlights

SACRED LEGACY C OLLECTION THE HIGHLIGHTS

A Walpi Man, 1900

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

Edward S. Curtis Self-Portrait, 1899

Edward S. Curtis

SACRED LEGACY COLLECTION Edward Curtis created an unparalleled record of beauty, spirituality, and Native American life. It is a deeply human story, which continues to move people around the globe after more than a century. It is one of the largest and most important bodies of work created in the history of photography. Curtis’ profound and powerful imagery has inspired millions of viewers and he is one of the most widely known and collected fine art photographers in the world. Taken as a whole, in 2013 dollars, the project cost over $35,000,000 to complete, which is unparalleled in the 170 year history of the photographic medium.

The Sacred Legacy Collection is unique, unprecedented, and highly curated. The Collection is the culmination of nearly four decades of scholarship and collecting. The great success of Sacred Legacy, Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian and the exhibitions of the same name inspired the creation of this Collection. For the first time, I am de-accessioning a large and important group of vintage Curtis photographs from my personal collection to make this Collection possible.

The Collection comprises over eight hundred vintage Curtis photographs and many pieces of rare ephemera which add significant context and meaning to the photographs. Every cultural/geographic region which Curtis photographed is represented, as is every style

of Curtis’ photography, including portrait, landscape, ceremony, still life, etc. The Collection contains beautiful examples of every print media Curtis is known to have worked in. Many of the prints have exceptional provenance and are from historically important Curtis collections. Others have a prestigious exhibition history. Many of the photographs are rare or unique. There has never been another Curtis collection offered for sale that approximates this Collection’s depth, breadth, quality, rarity, condition, or provenance.

The Sacred Legacy Collection represents the distilled essence of Edward Curtis’ thirty-year career. It is designed to be a unique holding for a discerning museum or archive. It offers exceptional exhibition, educational, and outreach possibilities and will distinguish the collection in which it resides from the approximately 200 institutions that currently own complete sets of The North American Indian, but generally no other Curtis material.

The Collection has an aggregate value of over $3,300,000 and is being offered in its entirety at $2,500,000.

Christopher Cardozo January 1, 2014

SUMMARY OF THE SACRED LEGACY COLLECTION 1. The Collection is unique, unprecedented, and would be impossible to replicate.

2. The Collection comprises approximately eight hundred vintage prints and related objects and represents the essence of Curtis’ photography of Native Americans.

3. The Collection contains most of Curtis’ most iconic images and many prints are extremely rare or unique.

4. Every important medium or process in which Curtis worked in is represented in the collection, as are all cultural/geographic areas Curtis photographed.

5. Print quality and condition are extraordinary.

6. The Collection is the culmination of nearly four decades of continuous collecting and scholarship.

7. The Collection could be used to create significant exhibition, education, and outreach programs.

8. The Collection contains prints from many historically important collections, including Edward Curtis’ personal collection.

Christopher Cardozo January 2013

SACRED LEGACY™ COLLECTION

COLLECTION OVERVIEW I. Vintage Photogravures 1. Portfolio Photogravures (294 prints, 214 tissue) 2. Volume Photogravures (427 prints, 178 tissue)

II. Vintage Platinum Prints 1. Large (22 prints) 2. Small (22 prints)

$1,849,681 $250,366 $693,000 $177,000

III. Vintage Goldtones (5)

$99,150

IV. Plate Covers (11) $43,000

V. Other Material $233,950 1. Gelatin Silver Prints (32) 2. Border Prints (6) 3. GT POP (1) 4. Other (26)

COLLECTION TOTAL

$3,346,147

A Zuni Governor, 1925 Vintage Platinum Print

Mosa - Mohave, 1903 Vintage Photogravure

A Son of the Desert - Navaho, 1904 Vintage Platinum Print

Shot in the Hand - Apsaroke, 1908 Vintage Photogravure

Bears Belly - Arikara, 1908 Vintage Photogravure

Waiting in the Forest - Cheyenne, 1910 Vintage Photogravure

Canyon de Chelly - Navaho, 1904 Vintage Photogravure

Watching the Dancers, 1906 Vintage Photogravure

An Oasis in the Badlands, 1905 Vintage Photogravure

Kutenai Duck Hunter, 1910 Vintage Photogravure

“I like a man who attempts the impossible.” —J.P. Morgan

Photograph by Edward Steichen, 1903 (not included in the Sacred Legacy Collection)

LARGE PHOTOGRAVURES

LARGE PHOTOGRAVURES

SMALL PHOTOGRAVURES

SMALL PHOTOGRAVURES

SMALL PHOTOGRAVURES

SMALL PHOTOGRAVURES

SMALL PHOTOGRAVURES

PLATE COVERS

“Some years ago I purchased a Curtis photograph of Plains Indians on horseback, moving with travois across an immense landscape of grasses....I had not seen the photograph before. It struck me with such force that tears came to my eyes. I felt that I was looking into a memory in my blood...There is a quality to the image, the composition, the invisible plane beyond the surface of the scene that is ineffable. It is a quality that informs the greatest art, and it is the standard in the Curtis photographs...”

—N. Scott Momaday Pulitzer Prize Winning Author

EPHEMERA

Photograph by Edward Curtis, c. 1905 (not included in the Sacred Legacy Collection)

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena... who does actually strive to do the deeds...and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

—President Theodore Roosevelt