An Oasis in the Badlands, South Dakota
Edward Sheriff Curtis
United States 1868-1952
An Oasis in the
Badlands, South Dakota
Orotone, 1905
Collection Museum of
Photographic Arts
Gift of the Schutz Family
2001.022.005
© Museum of
Photographic Arts
When In Time
1861
American Civil War begins
1868
Edward Sheriff Curtis born in the
United
States
1879
 |
Thomas Edison invents the electric light
1886
Curtis opens his
photography
studio in Seattle, Washington
1902
First teddy bear
1905
Curtis photographs An Oasis in
the Badlands, South Dakota
1947
 |
Edwin Land develops the first Polaroid
camera
1952
Curtis dies
Who What Where When Why
Who is the
artist?
Edward Sheriff Curtis
What is
the name of the artwork?
An Oasis in the Badlands, South Dakota
What materials
were used?
Orotone
Where is
the artist from?
United States
When was
the artwork made?
1905
Who?
Edward Sheriff Curtis was born near Whitewater,
Wisconsin
in 1868. He became interested in photography as a young child and even
built
his own camera. He later owned a successful photography studio in
Seattle, Washington.
Curtis is best-known for his photographs of Native Americans. He created
a series
of books, called the North American Indian, that included his
photographs as
well as information about the various tribes.
Why?
Curtis wanted the North American
Indian project to show the spirit of the Native Americans. For
thirty years, he visited more then eighty tribes all over the nation to
record their customs and traditions by taking over 40,000 photographs
and 10,000 recordings of Native American music and language. He
believed that Native American culture should be kept safe and wanted to
document it before the traditions disappeared. An
Oasis in the Badlands, South Dakota depicts Red Hawk
(Cheta'-luta), a sub-chief of the Ogalala Sioux, who was born in 1854.
Curtis experimented with a variety of techniques to produce
photographs that could be sold separately from his books. This work was
created using a technique called orotones,
or gold-tone prints. These gold-toned images, also known as
“Curt-Tones,” were praised for their beauty.
What does this photograph tell us about Native Americans?
How is this picture different from other Native American photographs
you
have seen? How is it the same?
Why did the photographer choose this angle? How would the
photograph be
different if the camera was placed higher? Lower?
Glossary Terms
Orotone – Photographs with a golden tone. These types of photographs are created by making the image on glass and then adding a mixture of powdered gold pigment and banana oil.
