Modisi, a Moki Girl (Walpi, Arizona)
Artist
John K. Hillers
(American, born Germany, 1843 - 1925)
Date1879
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage: 9 1/8 x 7 1/4 inches (23.18 x 18.42 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.254
InscribedPhotographer's credit and title in negative
On View
Not on viewCollections
Terms
In 1879, Congress rolled all the western surveys into one organization—the U.S. Geological Survey—and created the Bureau of American Ethnology to continue the study of the native peoples of the West. John K. Hillers worked for the latter for many years, producing portraits of hundreds of Native American subjects. Here, he uses a tribal blanket as an improvised backdrop to make an image that is both an ethnographic study and a poignant portrait.
Paula Richardson Fleming, Native American Photography at the Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2003); Julian H. Steward, Notes on Hillers' Photographs of the Paiute and Ute Indians Taken on the Powell Expedition of 1873 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1939).
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John K. Hillers
ca. 1872-1874
2005.27.5029
