Humanity
in the Photography of the North American Indian
Saturday, December 12, 2015, 1:00 p.m.
Library of Michigan
702 W. Kalamazoo Street
Lansing, MI 48933
The Historical Society of Greater Lansing in partnership
with the Library of Michigan is sponsoring a program on the early photography
of the American Indian at 1:00 p.m., Saturday, December 12, at the Library of
Michigan, located at 702 West Kalamazoo.
The program is being held in conjunction with the photo
exhibit "From Sepia to Selfies; 150 years of Lansing Photographic History”
featuring more than 300 professional and vernacular photographs of life in
Lansing. The exhibit is free and will be on display until December 30.
Photographic collector and seller Doug Price of Ann Arbor
will present “Humanity in the Photography of the North American Indian” and will
display and describe the context of original photographs by numerous early 20th
century photographers including Edward Curtis, Frank A. Rhinehart, Karl Moon
and Grace Chandler Burns, a Michigan photographer who at the turn of twentieth
century shot photographs in and around Harbor Springs and Petoskey of Indians
performing in the Hiawatha Pageant. (Hiawatha pageants were dramatized enactments of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" performed by American Indians in the early 20th century for the tourist market.) Chandler was a photographer in Petoskey
from 1899-1923 before moving to California.
Chandler also shot photographs of American Indian women
going about their daily chores, Price said.
Price said that he will display original photographs from
his collection that are representative of each photographer and provide the
context within they were shot.
He said photographs of this type were virtually lost in time
until the 1970s when Edward Curtis was rediscovered.
Curtis and the other famous photographers of that era worked
in a technique called pictorialist photography which stressed the beauty of an
image rather than its realism.
Price said pictorialist photography is sometimes criticized because
the photographs were highly stylized and often posed for dramatic effect.
Photographs were manipulated and retouched and often hand colored. Pictorialist
photography was popularized by Edward Steichen as a way to put photography on the
same plain as fine art.
Price began his interest in collecting and selling
photography while working for the old Jocundry’s Books in East Lansing after he
purchased a collection of Curtis photographs brought to his attention by a
customer. He has bought, sold and collected prints since.
He believes what critics of pictorialist photographs often overlook
is the photographers also shot as much as possible American Indians in everyday
life going about work and recreational activities.
Curtis in particular was meticulous about Indian lore and
life and did recordings, sketches and language interpretation. Curtis also
allowed the particular Indians to choose their own traditional dress and
artifacts to be photographed with.
“Some of his photography was the only record of some rituals
which at the time were banned by the federal government. He was allowed by the
Hopi to photograph the Snake Dance ceremony,” he said.
"Photographers who recorded traditional American Indian rituals and culture saw the value and beauty of cultures that were, at the time, largely discounted by most Americans. Their work is invaluable to historians and collectors alike," said HSGL President Valerie Marvin.
The Historical Society of Greater Lansing’s exhibit “From
Sepia to Selfies: 150 years of Lansing Photographic History” is on display until
December 30 on the fourth floor of the Library of Michigan. The exhibit is open
during regular Library hours 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. weekdays and the second Saturday
of the month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
