Edward S. Curtis "Tokópala – Walapai" Original Vintage Photogravure on Gampi Tissue, 1907, Cardozo Collection

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An original vintage photogravure from Edward S. Curtis's landmark The North American Indian. Tokópala – Walapai is a 1907 portrait … Read more An original vintage photogravure from Edward S. Curtis's landmark The North American Indian. Tokópala – Walapai is a 1907 portrait of a Walapai (Hualapai) man, his long hair loose, draped in a richly patterned printed cloth and strands of beadwork — Curtis at his most intimate, letting the face and textiles carry the whole frame. The Walapai are a Yuman-speaking people of northwestern Arizona, photographed during Curtis's early Southwestern fieldwork for the project's second volume.
From Volume 2 (facing page 128) of The North American Indian, printed after Curtis's copyright photograph of 1907. It is printed on genuine Japanese gampi tissue — the rarest and most costly of the three handmade papers Curtis used, prized for the luminous depth and fine tonal gradation it gives the sepia image — and remains in its original Holland Van Gelder mount. Titled in the plate lower left (TOKÓPALA – WALAPAI), with the 1907 copyright inscribed below the image.

Provenance: The Christopher G. Cardozo Collection — the foremost private collection of Curtis's work — with the collection's inventory number (CCI-4941) in pencil to the verso. Now in private Colorado collection See less