Post by grahamew on Jun 10, 2008 13:24:27 GMT -5
My review first appeared in The English Westerners' Tally Sheet
Brock V. Silversides, The Face Pullers: Photographing Native Canadians 1871-1939 (Calgary; Fifth House Ltd, 1994); 184 pages, incl. photographs. ISBN 1-895618-42-8
Soft cover - $24.95
The earliest known surviving photograph of Plains Indians is probably Solomon Carvalho’s picture of a Cheyenne camp in the Big Timber taken during Colonel John Fremont’s Rocky Mountain expedition of 1853 expedition. Photographers were prolific on the American Plains in the 1860s and 1870s, amongst them, William Henry Jackson, Alexander Gardner and William S. Soule, whose work has contributed considerably to the understanding of the various Plains cultures they depicted.
The Canadian west was settled far later than the plains south of the 49th parallel and there are, therefore, far fewer photographic images of Plains Indians taken during the buffalo hunting days. Brock Silversides has compiled an excellent survey of the work of the photographers in the Saskatchewan and Alberta region of the North-West Territories, from the buffalo hunting days of the 1870s and 1880s and the portrayal of life on the reserves, through the more obviously staged scenarios depicting the ‘old ways’, to photographs of Indians mingling with tourists in the 1930s.
The first government team surveyed the Canadian Prairies in 1858, but the first photographic images of First Nations peoples from what later became Saskatchewan and Alberta, were taken by Charles Horetzky during the Canadian Pacific Railway Survey of 1872. Although photographers working for the Geological Survey of Canada continued to produce images of western Indians, the first resident photographer in this area was the Englishman, George Anderton, who was stationed at Fort Walsh with the North-West Mounted Police between 1876-1897, and who is credited by some with taking the first picture of Sitting Bull. Even after he left the force, he continued his photographic work around Fort McLeod and Medicine Hat.
In 1883, the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad led to an influx of settlers, and among them came numerous itinerant photographers. Perhaps the most well known is Otto B. Buell, an American citizen based in Montreal, who photographed many of the key participants in the Riel Rebellion. As settlement increased, permanent urban studios were established, including one owned by one of the rare female frontier photographers, Geraldine Moodie of Battleford, Maple Creek and Medicine Hat.
Although many photographers fostered good relationships with the various tribes, their chief incentive was financial. Images of Indians were popular and later photographers, like Harry Pollard, working among the Blackfeet and the Assiniboine in the early twentieth century, often posed their subjects in romantic tableaux.
Silversides provides a good overall introduction and brief details of the photographers whose work this book covers, but there is not the detailed breakdown that can be found in Paula Richardson Fleming and Judith Luskey’s book, The North American Indian in Early Photographs (Oxford; Phaidon Press, 1988), nor does he endeavour to provide a critique of the artists or their manner of working. He does write, albeit briefly, about the relationship the Indians had with the camera, offering observers’ anecdotes about some of the practical problems, such as the photographer who tried to capture images of a ‘Sioux’ camp near Wood Mountain in 1884: when the Indians saw what he was up to, the accompanying journalist thought the scene reminded him of ‘Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.’ However, there is no attempt at an academic discourse on the way the photographs represented the idea of the Indian as constructed by the dominant white society, which seems to be a common approach to this kind of work at the moment, typified by several of the essays in Spirit Capture: Photographs from the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington; Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), edited by Tim Johnson, or Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography (London; Barbican Art Gallery and Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998), edited by Jane Alison.
The photographs are grouped into four sections: First Contact; A Dying Race; Transition; Inventing the Legend. The headings speak for themselves, although Silversides writes a brief introduction to each; however, the overwhelming impression given is one of cultures in transition. While there are views of Indians in contemporary clothing (mostly children or youths at school), the bulk show adults in at least some vestiges of traditional costume, even when, early in the twentieth century, images of Indians became less popular largely because they no longer looked the way the public expected them to. In fact, as early as 1891, Edward Roper, a tourist travelling on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, commenting about a group of Indians he had encountered, wrote, ‘Some had good faces, but the ideal Red Man was not there.’ Pictures of Indians dressed in ‘civilised’ clothing, or worse, as ragged paupers, did not appeal to the white consumer.
By the 1930s, the appeal of the “legendary” Indian had exerted itself: photographers began to pose First Nations people in native costume; western towns like Banff and Calgary would hold events featuring members of various tribes wearing full ‘traditional’ regalia, giving the public (and especially the tourists) the Indians that they wanted to see and boosting the attendance. Silversides partly blames the influence of Edward S. Curtis’ work, but notes that ‘the “Legendary Indian” continued to be produced well into the 1960s on postcards and placemats’ and he is being not a little disingenuous when he does not cite the role of the film and television industry in perpetuating this particular stereotype.
Occasionally, photographs are accompanied by some contextual detail and more of this would have been welcome. For example, while Silversides rightly comments that the ‘incongruous’ hat held by Charcoal in the seated portrait by Frederick Steele hides his handcuffs, he might have pointed out that instead of moccasins, he wears even more obviously incongruous socks. These could be prison issue, because the Métis-style embroidered jacket he wears may well be covering a prison shirt; although Silversides makes no mention of this, it certainly did not belong to Charcoal: it is a photographer’s prop which is featured in the pictures of Crow Eagle and Black Plume, which were also taken by Steele and which are also reproduced in this book.
Brock V. Silversides, The Face Pullers: Photographing Native Canadians 1871-1939 (Calgary; Fifth House Ltd, 1994); 184 pages, incl. photographs. ISBN 1-895618-42-8
Soft cover - $24.95
The earliest known surviving photograph of Plains Indians is probably Solomon Carvalho’s picture of a Cheyenne camp in the Big Timber taken during Colonel John Fremont’s Rocky Mountain expedition of 1853 expedition. Photographers were prolific on the American Plains in the 1860s and 1870s, amongst them, William Henry Jackson, Alexander Gardner and William S. Soule, whose work has contributed considerably to the understanding of the various Plains cultures they depicted.
The Canadian west was settled far later than the plains south of the 49th parallel and there are, therefore, far fewer photographic images of Plains Indians taken during the buffalo hunting days. Brock Silversides has compiled an excellent survey of the work of the photographers in the Saskatchewan and Alberta region of the North-West Territories, from the buffalo hunting days of the 1870s and 1880s and the portrayal of life on the reserves, through the more obviously staged scenarios depicting the ‘old ways’, to photographs of Indians mingling with tourists in the 1930s.
The first government team surveyed the Canadian Prairies in 1858, but the first photographic images of First Nations peoples from what later became Saskatchewan and Alberta, were taken by Charles Horetzky during the Canadian Pacific Railway Survey of 1872. Although photographers working for the Geological Survey of Canada continued to produce images of western Indians, the first resident photographer in this area was the Englishman, George Anderton, who was stationed at Fort Walsh with the North-West Mounted Police between 1876-1897, and who is credited by some with taking the first picture of Sitting Bull. Even after he left the force, he continued his photographic work around Fort McLeod and Medicine Hat.
In 1883, the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad led to an influx of settlers, and among them came numerous itinerant photographers. Perhaps the most well known is Otto B. Buell, an American citizen based in Montreal, who photographed many of the key participants in the Riel Rebellion. As settlement increased, permanent urban studios were established, including one owned by one of the rare female frontier photographers, Geraldine Moodie of Battleford, Maple Creek and Medicine Hat.
Although many photographers fostered good relationships with the various tribes, their chief incentive was financial. Images of Indians were popular and later photographers, like Harry Pollard, working among the Blackfeet and the Assiniboine in the early twentieth century, often posed their subjects in romantic tableaux.
Silversides provides a good overall introduction and brief details of the photographers whose work this book covers, but there is not the detailed breakdown that can be found in Paula Richardson Fleming and Judith Luskey’s book, The North American Indian in Early Photographs (Oxford; Phaidon Press, 1988), nor does he endeavour to provide a critique of the artists or their manner of working. He does write, albeit briefly, about the relationship the Indians had with the camera, offering observers’ anecdotes about some of the practical problems, such as the photographer who tried to capture images of a ‘Sioux’ camp near Wood Mountain in 1884: when the Indians saw what he was up to, the accompanying journalist thought the scene reminded him of ‘Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.’ However, there is no attempt at an academic discourse on the way the photographs represented the idea of the Indian as constructed by the dominant white society, which seems to be a common approach to this kind of work at the moment, typified by several of the essays in Spirit Capture: Photographs from the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington; Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), edited by Tim Johnson, or Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography (London; Barbican Art Gallery and Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998), edited by Jane Alison.
The photographs are grouped into four sections: First Contact; A Dying Race; Transition; Inventing the Legend. The headings speak for themselves, although Silversides writes a brief introduction to each; however, the overwhelming impression given is one of cultures in transition. While there are views of Indians in contemporary clothing (mostly children or youths at school), the bulk show adults in at least some vestiges of traditional costume, even when, early in the twentieth century, images of Indians became less popular largely because they no longer looked the way the public expected them to. In fact, as early as 1891, Edward Roper, a tourist travelling on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, commenting about a group of Indians he had encountered, wrote, ‘Some had good faces, but the ideal Red Man was not there.’ Pictures of Indians dressed in ‘civilised’ clothing, or worse, as ragged paupers, did not appeal to the white consumer.
By the 1930s, the appeal of the “legendary” Indian had exerted itself: photographers began to pose First Nations people in native costume; western towns like Banff and Calgary would hold events featuring members of various tribes wearing full ‘traditional’ regalia, giving the public (and especially the tourists) the Indians that they wanted to see and boosting the attendance. Silversides partly blames the influence of Edward S. Curtis’ work, but notes that ‘the “Legendary Indian” continued to be produced well into the 1960s on postcards and placemats’ and he is being not a little disingenuous when he does not cite the role of the film and television industry in perpetuating this particular stereotype.
Occasionally, photographs are accompanied by some contextual detail and more of this would have been welcome. For example, while Silversides rightly comments that the ‘incongruous’ hat held by Charcoal in the seated portrait by Frederick Steele hides his handcuffs, he might have pointed out that instead of moccasins, he wears even more obviously incongruous socks. These could be prison issue, because the Métis-style embroidered jacket he wears may well be covering a prison shirt; although Silversides makes no mention of this, it certainly did not belong to Charcoal: it is a photographer’s prop which is featured in the pictures of Crow Eagle and Black Plume, which were also taken by Steele and which are also reproduced in this book.