Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

1904
(American, 1868–1952)
Image: 31.5 x 41.8 cm (12 3/8 x 16 7/16 in.); Matted: 61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
© E.S. Curtis
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

This ancestral stronghold of the Navajo Nation, from which they were exiled from 1864 to 1868, is still owned by the tribe today.

Description

The soaring cliffs of Cañon de Chelly, one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in America, dwarf the Navajos riding in the midday Arizona sun in 1904. Edward S. Curtis’s images, though rooted in the documentary impulse, present a romanticized view of the past, one that he often staged to suggest an even earlier period. He had two sometimes-conflicting aims: to capture America’s vanishing Indigenous cultures but also to create photographic art.
Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

Cañon de Chelly - Navaho

1904

Edward S. Curtis

(American, 1868–1952)
America, 20th century

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