The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

At the Old Well of Acoma

At the Old Well of Acoma

1904
(American, 1868–1952)
America, 20th century
platinum print
Image: 32.3 x 41.6 cm (12 11/16 x 16 3/8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Gift of Kathryn Arns May in memory of Mary Moore Arns 1987.183
© E. S. Curtis
Location: not on view

Description

Edward S. Curtis, an ambitious commercial photographer in Seattle, recorded the vestiges of what he conceived as a "vanished race." Over time he compiled The North American Indian, a 723-image survey of the customs, habitats, and dress of North American Indians. Curtis saw tribal life through a veil of cultural preconceptions that sometimes led him to introduce false costumes and artifacts into his so-called documentations. The mythic "Indians" that issued from these interventions were further removed from reality by the use of soft-focus lenses and retouching to add highlights or delete attributes that Curtis considered un-Indian. His haunting images of North American life might thus be considered within the framework of pictorialism, rather than of documentation.
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 135
  • Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007).
    The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07); "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", no exhibition catalogue.
    CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art."
    Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
    The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).
    CMA, February 24 - April 17, 1988: "Year in Review 1987," CMA Bulletin, 75 (February 1988), p. 66, no. 50.
  • {{cite web|title=At the Old Well of Acoma|url=false|author=Edward S. Curtis|year=1904|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1987.183