Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
A nonfiction portrait of photographer Edward Curtis, following his determination to preserve Indigenous cultures through image-making while also tracing the larger history of the American West.
Work Information
Behind the photographs lies a relentless urge to record a vanishing world.
Published by HarperCollins, Timothy Egan’s narrative nonfiction follows Curtis’s adventurous life and the Indigenous world he sought to photograph and record. It sits at the intersection of photography history and cultural history.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Published
- 2012-10-09
- Pages
- 384 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.88 x 2.54 x 23.5 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780618969029
- ISBN-10
- 0618969020
- Price
- 5077 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Biographies & Memoirs/Specific Groups/Adventurers & Explorers
How a lone man’s epic obsession led to one of America’s greatest cultural treasures: Prizewinning writer Timothy Egan tells the riveting, cinematic story behind the most famous photographs in Native American history — and the driven, brilliant man who made them. Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared. An Indiana Jones with a camera, Curtis spent the next three decades traveling from the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Acoma on a high mesa in New Mexico to the Salish in the rugged Northwest rain forest, documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. It took tremendous perseverance — ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Eventually Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs, preserved 10,000 audio recordings, and is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian. His most powerful backer was Theodore Roosevelt, and his patron was J. P. Morgan. Despite the friends in high places, he was always broke and often disparaged as an upstart in pursuit of an impossible dream. He completed his masterwork in 1930, when he published the last of the twenty volumes. A nation in the grips of the Depression ignored it. But today rare Curtis photogravures bring high prices at auction, and he is hailed as a visionary. In the end he fulfilled his promise: He made the Indians live forever.
TIMOTHY EGAN is a national enterprise reporter for the New York Times. He is the author of five books and the recipient of several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Reviews
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Excellent!
A pleasure to read and to dive into the adventures of Curtis. His photos are beautiful and inspiring. How fortunate we are to have them so that we can remember.
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arrived shortly after it was ordered esp as it was ordered so close to Christmas and New Year break. Happy with service. I have read this book and it is awesome, the best book I have ever read so i expect the audio to be the same
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This book gave me insight into what took place between our Native Peoples and the taking over of their land by the Government and the horrible way they were treated. A wonderful picture and written history. It showed me how Government gave whole states to the Natives and then took all the land back once minerals were discovered. It broke my heart. A must read!
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SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER REVIEW Edward Curtis, 1868-1952, had a dream. The noted photographer and ethnologist intended to produce a comprehensive record of American Indian culture before the actual scene was erased by time. He intended to use photography, interviews, and recordings in the publishing of a massive 20-volume set of limited-edition books, hand-bound in leather with hand-set letter press print, hand-processed photogravure prints, and hand-made, imported etching stock. The magnificent set would be sold by subscription only, limited to 2,000 editions. Author Timothy Egan also had a vision of writing a biography of the driven workaholic Curtis who, by his own estimation, never slept more than a few hours a week. Egan’s drive seems no less powerful as he describes the complicated journeys, the endless agonizing travel, the never-ending scramble for funding, and the crushing disappointments in Curtis’s life. The end product of the 20-book set, containing more than 2,200 original photographs, took thirty years to complete. During the project Curtis made about fifty thousand negatives, some as large as fourteen by seventeen inches, ten thousand wax cylinder recordings of Native languages and music, wrote or edited nearly 4,000 pages of text, and produced a motion picture. In 1927 Curtis appeared before a judge during a hearing prompted by his ex-wife, in a suit for non-payment of child support. He testified that he had no funds, no business, worked for nothing, was the victim of a poor business deal with J.P. Morgan, hadn’t reached half his subscription goal, and that he would not receive any money when the project was completed. An astonished judge, amazed that anyone would subject themselves to such craziness, dismissed the case with no finding of guilt on Curtis’s part. Egan, at first glance, might be also deemed slightly crazy for trying to make sense of this massive amount of information and putting it into words. But he does a fantastic job, keeping the reader interested and the details crystal clear. The photographs, while suffering from poor reproduction, hint at the artistry in their creation. His research is impeccable and his prose is both educational and entertaining. One can’t help but cheer Curtis on and to root for his eventual triumph. That doesn’t happen and empathy for his plight is just as riveting. This is a great book and should not be missed. The author makes it an enjoyable read with each chapter providing a lesson in diligence. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES
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The amazing story of Edward Curtis, who realised that the world of the American Native Indian was fast disappearing, and made a record of every Indian tribe in the United States. He eventually came to spend most of his adult working life on his master-project, with support from the President and the rich, and left us a window into a lost world. His photographs are now reproduced the world over. Be aware that this is a biography, beautifully written, but with just a few of Curtis' photographs therein. For more photographs you will need another book. But as a story of a remarkable life it is gripping and inspiring.
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Perfect.