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Native American Photogravures On Display At Charles M. Bair Family Museum

Unique Images of North American Indians and tribal landscapes are on display  throughout the summer at the Charles M Bair Family Museum in Martinsdale, Montana.

It a major exhibition from the Bair collection called, The Shadow Catcher: Edward Sheriff Curtis.

The images are photogravures. Basically, it is a printmaking process that starts with a photo negative, where the image is etched to a copper plate, then printed.

The engraving process, the type of paper, and the sepia tones mimic a painting, says Elizabeth Guheen, Director and Chief Curator of the Bair Family Museum.

“They are printed on very fine Japanese tissue paper and the result using both the process and the tissue paper is very painterly, says Guheen. “It is very soft. It almost appears that it is brushwork even though the image is derived from a photographic negative."

Credit Self Portrait, 1899
Edward S. Curtis

The images are by Edward Sheriff Curtis, a photographer and self-taught ethnographer. He spent nearly 30 years of the early 20th century visiting, documenting and photographing over 80 North American tribes.

Because of the print making process, these images are delicate and light sensitive.

Before a large number of these photogravures could be displayed at one time, the lighting had to be changed in the large galleries.

“In order to get light down, in addition to LED, we use lenses,” Guheen says. “ We use a light meter to be constantly checking that they are at their light level.”

To further protect the images, the lights go off when no one is in a gallery.

Charlie Bair purchased a large collection from Curtis, his long-time friend, to provide financial support in the early years of the project. They were the first five volumes of what would eventually become a 20 volume collection.

Each volume contains a portfolio of 40 images and a book that contained some smaller prints of the images and text about the images as well as details about the tribes and their lives. Guheen says Curtis wanted these books to be read and studied.

The project’s enormous scope and escalating costs eventually bankrupted Curtis and ruined his life and health. Guheen says by the end Curtis had sold off all his rights to his work.

The 40 photogravures on display are originals and are less than a quarter of the museum’s 180-plus Curtis collection.

This summer’s exhibit includes the following tribes: Apache, Jicarilla, Navajo, Pima, Papago, Qahatika, Mojave, Yuma, Maricopa, Walapai. Havasupai, Apache-Mojave (Yawapai), Teton Sioux, Yanktonai, Assiniboin, Apsaroka (Crows), Mandan, Arikara and the Atsina.

The Curtis photogravures will be up until Oct. 29, 2017, at the Bair Family Museum. 

Kay Erickson has been working in broadcasting in Billings for more than 20 years. She spent well over a decade as news assignment editor at KTVQ-TV before joining the staff at YPR. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University, with a degree in broadcast journalism. Shortly after graduation she worked in Great Falls where she was one of the first female sports anchor and reporter in Montana.