Puget Sound Baskets

Edward Curtis captured scenes of Native American life that were seemingly untouched by modernity. He was initially funded by the financier John Pierpont Morgan to record Native Americans at the turn of the century, when industrialization, politics, and economics were quickly and drastically changing their way of life. From 1907 to 1930, his photographs and writings on more than 80 distinct cultural groups were published in a 20-volume limited-edition portfolio called The North American Indian; this image appeared in the ninth volume. Curtis was undoubtedly influenced by the tenets of Pictorialism, which valued painterly techniques and handcrafted prints, and he photographed this arrangement of baskets with dramatic lighting that emphasized the variety of woven patterns.