EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS Pl. 91 Prayer To The Mystery, 1907 15.6x10.2" Photogravure on 22x18" Japan Vellum paper from Portfolio 3 of The North American IndianASG# ESC/5645

The Curtis caption reads: "In supplication the pipe was always offered to the Mystery by holding it aloft. At the feet of the worshipper lies a buffalo-skull, symbolic of the spirit of the animal upon which the Indians were so dependent. The subject of the picture is Picket Pin, an Ogalala Sioux."

Edward Sheriff Curtis's (1868-1952) legacy was a monumental, heroic and theatrical record of the American Indian and their recollected and imagined way of life before the white man. His mastery of the grandest pictorial style and technique in his photogravures, orotones and silver and platinum prints was rivaled only by the most elegant prints of Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz. During this time he was the most famous photographer in the country just as Ansel Adams later in the 20th Century.

Good. Minor wear mild handling marks