2009-05-07

The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius Presents an Exhibition of Photographs: "Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian", May 8, 2009

Attention Media Representatives:  As part of the 2009 American Culture Month, the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius presents an exhibition of photographs, "Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian," opening at the Jonas Mekas Visual Art Center on May 8 and running until May 24.

With The North American Indian, Edward S. Curtis created an irreplaceable photographic and ethnographic record of more than eighty of North America's native nations. His mission was to catalogue how Native Americans lived prior to their contact with white settlers.  His work did not only involve photography.  He also amassed information on all areas of native life and lore, including vocabulary, political and social organization, religious customs, dwellings, food gathering and preparation, geography, games, music and dance, dress, weights and measures, and birth, marriage, death customs, mythology and spirituality.  He hoped to complete the study in five or six years within a budget of $25,000. In fact, what the New York Herald hailed as "the most gigantic undertaking since the making of the King James edition of the Bible," required for its completion more than thirty years, one and a half million dollars and the assistance of a vast array of patrons, researchers, scientists, editors, master craftsmen, interpreters, sympathetic creditors, tribal elders, and medicine men.

The exhibition consists of sixty photographs, taken between 1907 and 1939, which belong to the personal collection of Mr. Christopher Cardozo, recognized as the world's leading authority on Curtis' photographs.

For more information, please contact the U.S. Embassy Media Affairs Assistant at 266 5431.