{
"data": {
"id": 325464,
"accession_number": "2019.27",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "The Vanishing Race, 1904. Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868\u20131952). Orotone in original Curtis Studio frame; image: 27.8 x 35.5 cm (10 15/16 x 14 in.); paper: 27.8 x 35.5 cm (10 15/16 x 14 in.); framed: 40 x 47.5 cm (15 3/4 x 18 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann, 2019.27",
"current_location": null,
"title": "The Vanishing Race",
"creation_date": "1904",
"creation_date_earliest": 1904,
"creation_date_latest": 1904,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "orotone in original Curtis Studio frame",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 1900-1950",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 27.8 x 35.5 cm (10 15/16 x 14 in.); Paper: 27.8 x 35.5 cm (10 15/16 x 14 in.); Framed: 40 x 47.5 cm (15 3/4 x 18 11/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.278,
"height_inch": 10,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.355,
"width_inch": 14,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
},
"paper": {
"height": 0.278,
"height_inch": 10,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.355,
"width_inch": 14,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
},
"framed": {
"height": 0.4,
"height_inch": 15,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.475,
"width_inch": 18,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.6875
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written in gold in lower right on recto: \u201cCurtis\u201d",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"inscription": "Imprinted in type on adhesive label removed from verso of backing board: \u201cHerbert F. Johnson Museum of Art/Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4001/Return postage guaranteed/32. Edward Curtis (1868-1952) American/The Vanishing Race, Navajo, 1904/orotone/18 x 22\u201d/An American Portrait: Photographs from the/Collectionof Diann and Thomas Mann/April 1-June 12, 1994\u201d",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"inscription": "Various paper fragments from backing board have been removed or fallen off and retained",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Daniel Wolf, Inc., New York, NY",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Thomas A. and Diann G. Mann, Palm Beach Gardens, FL",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1983-2019",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "March 4, 2019",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "This image is the frontispiece of Edward Curtis\u2019s multivolume study of The North American Indian.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Curtis wrote that this scene of Navajo riding off into the distance showed \u201cthat the Indians as a race, already shorn in their tribal strength and stripped of their primitive dress, are passing into the darkness of an unknown future.\u201d The artist\u2019s signature image is produced here as an orotone, a positive gelatin silver print on glass that has been backed with gold pigment or leaf.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79875980"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Joseph Epes Brown, The North American Indian, Aperture, New York, 1972,",
"page_number": "p. 95",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Curtis, Edward S., and Christopher Cardozo. Native Nations: First Americans As Seen by Edward S. Curtis. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.",
"page_number": "p. 123",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Curtis, Edward S., and Christopher Cardozo. Sacred Legacy: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.",
"page_number": "p. 188",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Curtis, Edward S., Frederick Webb Hodge, Theodore Roosevelt, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Christopher Cardozo. The North American Indian: Being a Series of Volumes Picturing and Describing the Indians of the United States and Alaska. 2017.",
"page_number": "Portfolio I, pl. 1",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc. An American Journey: The Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Collection of Photographic Masterworks. 2018.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.27",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 325464,
"creators": [
{
"id": 95,
"description": "Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868\u20131952)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Edward S. Curtis American, 1868 - 1952\r\n\r\nEdward Sheriff Curtis, born near White Water, Wisconsin, was a well-established commercial photographer before he undertook his best known work shortly before the turn of the century. Working first as photographer for the Edward H. Harriman expedition in Alaska (1899), he later secured the endorsement of Theodore Roosevelt and the support of J. P. Morgan for an extensive anthropological and photographic study of Native Americans. Curtis's work from 1906 -- 20 resulted in The North American Indian and eventually generated 40,000 negatives, of which 1,200 were presented in gravure form in the 20 volumes and 20 accompanying portfolios of his study.\r\n\tAlthough his intentions were anthropological and scholarl -- to preserve the appearance and customs of a dying race -- Curtis nevertheless was affected by the artistic styles of his time. His portraits and tableaux were often strongly pictorialist, as their presentation on imported papers and in rarefied media such as orotone would suggest. His scientific aims were frequently undercut by a personal interpretation of his subjects, to whom he often supplied costumes and props. Time has proved Curtis, in this era of his career, equally an artist and an anthropologist. His later work in Los Angeles, which deserves further study, focused on Hollywood and the world of movies. T.W.F.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1868",
"death_year": "1952",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2019-03-04T00:00:00-05:00",
"sortable_date": 1904,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1904",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:54:01.188000"
}
}