Who painted Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo?

Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo was painted by Edward S. Curtis in 1904.

Where can I see Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo?

Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo is held by Cleveland Museum of Art.

Artwork

Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo

Edward S. Curtis , 1904

Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race-Navajo is a work on paper by Edward S. Curtis. It dates from 1904 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race, Navajo is a photogravure created by Edward S.

Accession no.: 1995.203.21.1
Credit line: Presented by Mrs. James H. Hoyt, Elton Hoyt, II, and Mrs. Amasa Stone Mather in memory of James H. Hoyt

About this work

Overview

This aesthetic choice aligns with the Pictorialist movement, prioritizing mood and artistic composition over strict documentary realism.

Portfolio I, Plate 1: The Vanishing Race, Navajo is a photogravure created by Edward S. Curtis in 1904 as the opening image of his monumental project, The North American Indian. The work depicts a group of Navajo riders traversing a rocky, shadowed landscape, moving from right to left across the frame. Curtis employed soft-focus techniques and dramatic chiaroscuro to obscure specific facial details, emphasizing the silhouettes of the figures against a dark, indistinct background of hills.

This aesthetic choice aligns with the Pictorialist movement, prioritizing mood and artistic composition over strict documentary realism. The title, The Vanishing Race, reflects Curtis's central thesis that Native American cultures were inevitably disappearing due to modernization and assimilation. As the inaugural plate of his twenty-volume series, this image establishes the thematic tone for the entire project, which sought to record the lives, customs, and physical appearance of Indigenous peoples of North America before they were allegedly lost to history.

The photograph is widely recognized as a defining example of early 20th-century ethnographic photography, though modern scholarship often critiques its romanticized and fatalistic portrayal of Native subjects.

Subject & Meaning

The work’s title references the Navajo people, suggesting a commentary on their perceived decline at the turn of the twentieth century. The riders, clad in long, dark garments that merge with the surrounding shadows, evoke a sense of anonymity and loss, reinforcing the notion of a culture receding into obscurity.

Technique & Style

Curtis employs a pronounced chiaroscuro effect, juxtaposing stark illumination on the figures with deep, enveloping darkness in the landscape. This manipulation of light and shadow heightens the emotional intensity of the scene, creating a dramatic visual contrast that draws the viewer’s eye to the illuminated riders while the background recedes into near‑silence.

History & Provenance

Created during Curtis’s extensive documentation of Native American life, the photograph entered the Cleveland Museum of Art’s holdings as part of its early twentieth‑century acquisitions of photographic works. Its inclusion in Portfolio I reflects Curtis’s broader project to compile a visual record of Indigenous peoples, a venture that has shaped both photographic and ethnographic histories.