Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) Photogravure of The Vanishing Nation-Navaho

Item#12446

Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) Photogravure of The Vanishing Nation-Navaho

Printed on tweed weave paper as part of American Indian Portfolio Volume #3 Produced in Boston by John Andew & Son in 1906.

Curtis traveled the United States photographing and recording native Americans at ceremonial occasions and at work. Curtis was sponsored by Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan. He made orotone photographs with golden overtones created on glass and powered with gold dust and banana oil.

This is a photogravure of an original photograph made in the 1960’s. A photogravure is a photographic image produced from an engraving plate. The process is rarely used today due to the costs involved, but it produces prints which have the subtlety of a photograph and the art quality of a lithograph. In essence, the production of a photogravure consists of three steps: taking the picture; producing a printing plate of the image; and printing the image on paper.

The basic process, also called photogravure, was developed in the 1850s. After taking a picture, a glass transparency is made from the negative. Next, a copper engraving plate is dusted with grains of bitumen and heated so that the bitumen becomes attached to the plate. A carbon print which has been exposed beneath the transparency is then transferred to the plate. The plate is then bathed in warm water which causes the unexposed gelatin of the carbon print to be washed away, leaving the image in relief. Ferric chloride is then applied to the plate and eats into the copper in proportion to the highlights and shadows of the gelatin relief. The result is an etched copper plate of the original photographic image.

This photogravure is in pristine and has been stored flat in museum quality acid free paper.

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