The American Indians in some of Edward Sheriff Curtis' photographs aren't dressed for work. Anyone familiar with the culture knows that the people would not wear their finest clothes to make pottery or weave baskets. Yet from 1900 to 1930, many obliged - maybe even with great amusement - to pose and accommodate the photographer they called Shadow Catcher. Despite those occasional inaccuracies, Curtis succeeded in capturing the essence of the lives and spirit of indigenous peoples in more than 80 nations. Forty-six of those images are in "Faces of Native America: Photographs by Edward Curtis," through Feb. 2 at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley. "They are just beautiful and excellent photos that documented a vanishing way of life," says Dr. Graziella Marchicelli, fine arts curator for the museum's four sites. "They are very significant as far as their artistic value as American art and American culture." Curtis, who had only a sixth-grade education, built a camera when he was growing up in Minnesota, then taught himself to expose and develop prints. He worked as a darkroom assistant in St. Paul, and later bought a share in a photography studio in Seattle. He was soon on his own and winning honors. When Curtis was photographing Mt. Rainier, he encountered a lost expedition of authorities in conservation and ethnography. Among them were C. Hart Merriam, chief of the U.S. Biological Survey, and George Bird Grinnell, noted Indian authority and editor of Field and Stream magazine. It was their lucky break that Curtis rescued them. It was his lucky break that Merriam arranged for Curtis to become a photographer for the Harriman Expedition to Alaska. The team returned from the 9,000-mile trip with 5,000 photographs, 600 of them of animal and plant species new to science. Some of Curtis' work illustrated 14 volumes that the Smithsonian Institution published about the expedition. In 1900, Grinnell took Curtis to document the Blackfeet Indians in Montana. Weeks later, Curtis set out on his own to photograph Indians in the Southwest. It was the beginning of a colossal project that during a span of 30 years produced 40,000 images and cost $1.5 million that was funded by patrons. But it also cost Curtis his family, his health and his finances. "Such a massive project is almost incomprehensible today," Marchicelli says. "He left a legacy that cannot be measured." The work was published as "The North American Indian" in 20 volumes and 20 portfolios with thousands of pages of text and more than 2,200 photogravures. That process makes a photographic image from an engraving plate, creating a print that has the subtlety of a photograph and the aesthetic quality of a lithograph. In 1996, Charles and Julie Irsch, attorney Susan Bender, Peggy Bennington and art dealer Monique Goldstrum, all of New York City, donated 46 of Curtis' photogravures to SAMA's permanent collection. "When I look at these pictures, I think how sad it is that these were taken right when the people were going onto reservations," site director Beverly J. Struble says. "But it's wonderful that Curtis did this." One of her favorites is "Cheyenne Female Profile: 1910," a portrait of an older woman with braids and tan, leathery skin. "Curtis captured so much in her," Struble says. "She is so powerful, really big and strong. I see such a great beauty in her. She has this air about her - she is very sure of herself, and I think Curtis saw that, too." The current exhibit also features several more contemporary pieces by Leonard Baskin, whose work Struble calls "unequivocally evocative and intentionally emotional." Baskin, who was born in 1922, creates works in a number of mediums including sketches, inks and lithographs. One of them at the museum, "White Man Runs Him," is a lithograph of a Crow scout camouflaged in the grass. "He has real piercing eyes, sort of a long stare gazing off into the distance to see what awaits his tribe," Struble says. "It's how he spends his day as a scout, peering through the grass." Struble considers the exhibit artistically satisfying as well as philosophically significant. "The way the prints are done in a very soft sepia makes the whole collection very appropriate at this time of year," she says. "It's a real comfortable kind of feeling."

'Faces of Native America'

Photographs by Edward Curtis Through Feb. 2. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Free Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley, 1 Boucher Lane and Route 711, South Ligonier (724) 238-6015

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