Wishnam Fisherman

Edward Curtis was fascinated by the lives and histories of American Indians. Although he began with a traditionally documentary approach, Curtis’ best known photographs present a romantic and nostalgic vision: they record ways of life that were already largely gone or fictions. Curtis devoted much of the years 1907–1930 to producing The North American Indian, his mammoth survey of the surviving tribes of North America. To help support this expensive endeavor, Curtis sold many of his pictures as decorously framed orotones. This process lent the works a moody iridescence, and the prints were widely admired as parlor decorations and wedding gifts in upper-middle-class households. Wishnam Fisherman was an especially popular image that sold in considerable quantity for $15 each.