Native American Portraits [Hardcover]

Nancy Hathaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1990

Over one hundred photographs from the renowned Kurt Koegler collection of Native American portraits taken between the end of the Civil War and the end of World War I are featured in this powerful compendium depicting a proud and defeated people. Native American Portraits presents a factual, anecdotal, and visual history of the evolving artistry and technology of a century of photographers, as well as of the tribes whose vanishing trappings and traditions they sought to capture with their craft. The photographers -- William Henry Jackson, Camillus Fly, Carleton Watkins, and Lee Moorhouse, among scores of others -- were intrepid adventurers, fiercely committed to their work, who hauled hundreds of pounds of photographic equipment across the mountains and faced many dangers; their subjects -- including such important warriors as Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, Red Cloud, Geronimo, and Chief Gall (who led the Indians to victory against Custer) -- appear venerable, dignified, and beaten. Fascinating and provocative, this richly illustrated and painstakingly annotated volume documents the intersection of photography in its infancy and Native American culture in precipitous decline.Nancy HathawayISBN: 0-87701-757-3PAPERBOUND

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This volume of over 100 duotone photographs from the noted Kurt Koegler collection documents both the development of photography as an art and the history of a proud but defeated people. Early photographers like Alexander Gardner and William Henry dragged their equipment across mountains and deserts to photograph often hostile and suspicious subjects. With the closing of the frontier and the establishment of the reservations, the photographic style changed from a straightforward realism to the romantic image of the noble Indian. As Hathaway admits in her introductory essay, many of the pictures suffer from a lack of information about the Indians and the photographers, but the haunting images of warriors, medicine men, and families from many tribes make this a valuable addition to photography and Native American collections.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Nancy Hathaway is the author of The Unicorn, as well as many articles on photography, art, psychology, and other topics for a variety of magazines, including Harper's Bazaar, New Woman, American Way, and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. She lives in Venice, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (November 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877017662
• ISBN-13: 978-0877017660
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,796,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Iconic Photographs, July 15, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Native American Portraits (Paperback)

I mean my review title literally. In fact, these photos move me emotionally far more than any icons of saints, Catholic or Orthodox, that I've ever seen. These images of people from stone-age cultures face-to-face with representatives of the age of the camera are potent statements of our equal humanity and our equal human condition.

I picked this book up on a recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery, one of the great museums of Washington DC, which houses an immense collection of 19th and early 20th Century photographs of Native Americans. The photos in this book all come from the private collection of Kurt Koegler. Across the monumental plazas from the Portrait Gallery, you'll also find the architecturally superb new Museum of the American Indian, which has the noble mission of reminding people that genocide was not complete, that vibrant Native American cultures still exist and still contribute to the America we are.

The brief introduction to this collection of 100+ photos focuses on the activities and intentions of the photographers who took them, WH Jackson, LA Huffman, Alexander Gardiner, Frank Rinehart, and others. The subjects range from the nameless Navajo boy on the cover to the great resistance leaders, Red Cloud, Gall, Joseph, Geronimo. There are also photos of women, children, and old men who simply survived. Many of the sharpest and most photogenic images are of trans-Mississippian chiefs who courageously traveled to Washington to negotiate treaties that were never sincerely meant to be kept by the invaders. Red Cloud, for instance, came to DC by train after successfully halting the construction of roads and forts in his people's land. Among other acts of the handlers assigned to impress him was a scheduled visit to a DC bordello. Red Cloud returned to his Souix villages to declare that the White Man was more numerous than leaves, and that resignation was the only strategy for survival. His photo on page 58 shows him sitting, looking remarkably like Abraham Lincoln as sculpted in the great Lincoln Memorial. That an equal memorial to Red Cloud has not been built is a sad demonstrative that Americans remain convinced of the justification of their conquest.

Face after face in this book stirs my appreciation of the humanity of the peoples we Euromericans dispossessed. They are icons of conscience. It's appropriate, I think, to approach them worshipfully.

Joseph, of the Nez Percé, was a hero as intrepid and as tragic as Hector of Troy. When he was finally cornered by General Nelson Miles, America's Agamemnon, just a few miles from Canada, the land of freedom, he supposedly made this speech:
"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
Ironically, the speech was probably assigned him by Lt. Charles ES Wood, who scribbled the words in a report and who later became a poet. For a few dozen words, Lt. Wood channeled Homer.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful, Moving Book, January 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Native American Portraits (Hardcover)

I loved Native American Portraits. Hathaway captured beautifully the turbulence and tragedy of the time and the photographs are truly distinctive.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great tribute, August 4, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Native American Portraits (Paperback)

I found this book wandering through B-Daltons about a year ago. It is by far a work of a master. The pictures featured in this book are ones that I have not been able to find anywhere else. Nancy Hathaway has put together a great tribute book. I love the pictures within the pages of this book, it's a great gift for yourself or a friend interested in Anthropology, Native American Studies, or just for the coffee table. I LOVE THIS BOOK. I look at it everyday and truly have some favorite pictures!