'Double Exposure' closes Sunday at Seattle Art Museum

This is your last chance to see “Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson.”

The museum summary: “iconic early 20th-century photographs by photographer Edward S. Curtis alongside contemporary works – including photography, video, and installations – by Indigenous artists Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, and Will Wilson.

Their powerful portrayals of Native identity offer a compelling counter narrative to stereotypes present in Curtis’s images.

Curtis is one of the most well-known photographers of Native people and the American West.

‘Double Exposure’ features over 150 of his photographs, as well as lantern slides he used in multimedia lectures, audio field recordings made on wax cylinders, and a projection of his docu-drama feature-length film made in British Columbia.”

Go see this show if you haven’t yet. I saw it when it opened in June and reflected for days on the contemporary criticisms from Native artists and art professionals against Curtis’ romanticizing Indians in his 24 volume “The North American Indian.”

I have also been thinking about where I live.

In his introduction to the first volume, in 1904, Curtis wrote about his purpose to record a “vanishing race” and offered a now iconic photograph, taken from the rear, of several horsemen going down a hilly trail.

Of course, Indian populations have grown. The “race” was never disappeaing.

I finally got to this question: “If Edward Curtis had not photographed Indians, what would be different in the world?”

This is my consideration: Curtis spent 30 years consumed with documenting western North American tribes, traveling on horseback and by boat to Arizona, Montana, Canada and Alaska, living in the open summer and winter, almost dying, losing his marriage and giving up a fortune. For his obsession he died penniless, broken in spirit and forgotten, unknown. Curtis had dined with presidents and chiefs and J.P. Morgan, the richest man in the world.

He finished his project in 1930. For over 40 years, until the 1970s, no one knew he had taken some 40,000 photographs and written 24 volumes of ethnography.

This is all true.

Today, Google “Indian” and open images and Curtis photographs come up in the top 10. Yet in 1973 Curtis was totally forgotten.

Curtis worked with integrity and care. He cultivated and built strong, lasting bonds with native peoples throughout the continent. He was a great artist and probably a romantic. He was a product of his times, with the same limited vision all humans have.

Yes, he staged photographs, used props and pulled at heart strings. But did he engage authentically with the people he travelled across the continent to repeatedly live among? Was he, and were they, aware of the gravity of his efforts?

No one in any of those photos is alive to say what their relationship with Curtis was. Look closely and judge for yourself the dynamic between them.

Me, I believe the native people he worked with knew he loved and was committed to them. I believe Curtis loved them. I believe the Indians respected and understood Curtis and his project. I see all those qualities in his photographs.

Also: “In Red Ink” continues at the Museum of Northwest Art through Sept. 23. It “forms a corrective lens on stereotypical and historicized depictions of Native American identity by highlighting artists and traditions while simultaneously reflecting their current realities within a living culture,” write MoNA curators.