Man in the Golden Helmet - Edward S Curtis
by Art Enrico
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$1,540
Dimensions
24.000 x 30.000 inches
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Title
Man in the Golden Helmet - Edward S Curtis
Artist
Art Enrico
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Canvas
Description
Edward S. Curtis was a self-taught photographer, an artist with a camera, and a visionary. His photographic career began in 1900, spanned forty years and was almost exclusively involved with documenting the fading lifestyles of native North Americans. It was a daunting task that cost him almost everything - money, home, and health. Despite the monumental nature of his work, however, it was not without controversy. Whenever a person of one race endeavors to promote another, they leave themselves open to accusations of cultural encroachment, patronization, or just plain exploitation. Curtis has been accused of all these things, sometimes fairly, most times not. The worst cultural faux pas he probably committed was that he sometimes posed his subjects with objects or clothing they would not normally have had or worn under the conditions photographed. His intention was never to misrepresent or patronize, but he knew he had an audience with certain preconceived ideas of who and what Native Americans were. Curtis was a photographer and an artist, not an anthropologist. I am certain he believed he was serving a higher rather than literal truth.
Toward the end of his life, Curtis was a haunted man; broke, his health failing, his marriage dissolving, his life's work in danger of never reaching a wider audience or, in his mind worse, coming under the control of his estranged wife. The photo I used for the basis of this painting was of a younger Curtis, but it seemed to me to presage the future events of his life. The title comes from a painting by Rembrandt, one whose authenticity some art historians have questioned. It seemed to me a most appropriate title. Some of Curtis's photographs have also been seen as not "authentic" due to the inappropriate cultural props held or worn by some of his subjects. Highlighting Curtis's own cultural props - his hat and beard - and associating them with a famous painting of another prop considered to be inauthentic seems to me a balancing of the equation. Some Curtis-philes may be offended at this, but I am sorry. It is just as necessary to recognize our icons' flaws as it is to laud their virtues lest they pass from the realm of mere mortals to that of mere gods. Gods are, after all, so boring.
Uploaded
February 19th, 2011
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