Native American Portraits

Résumé

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.