Native Nations: First North Americans as Seen by Edward Curtis

This stunning collection selects 110 striking photographs taken by Curtis (1868-1952) in his nearly 30-year effort, begun at the turn of the century, to create what Cardozo, a Curtis specialist and photograph dealer, calls ``an irreplaceable photographic and ethnographic record'' of Native Americans. The photographs, reproduced using a new printing technology, are arresting. Portraits like those of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and of a Mohave woman potter show the dignity and endurance of these Americans. Landscape pictures of tepees in winter or a canoe-with-hunter suggest the shadings of a charcoal master and demonstrate Curtis's artistry. The photographs also range over pottery, masked dancers and various ritual objects and are accompanied by Curtis's detailed, stately captions. Some Native Americans have criticized Curtis for stereotypical, stylized images, notes former museum curator Horse Capture, but to him, they are images of beauty, power and pride. Indeed, the portrait of Horse Capture's great-grandfather is another moving epitaph for a lost world. (Nov.)