A People's Art History of The United States

 Edward S. Curtis became famous because of his iconic method of posing Native Americans for photographs. He distorted images via printing to give off the effect of being old. Curtis was not portraying the truth of Native Americans’ lives by posing them and distorting images in a such ways. Curtis’ career lasted over the course of about 30 years. Regardless of what Curtis’ methods were for portraying the Natives so off the mark, many Native Americans themselves chose to not acknowledge the photographs as valid pieces of work which display their culture.

  Curtis was not part of the the world he was portraying. He could never understand something like that. Ralph did bring up the idea of being aware of boundaries and what people are allowed to discuss and illustrate as artists. We would think that ANYTHING goes, but no, it does not. Artists need to be careful with what they make their work about. Not everything is grounds for public discussion.