작품 상세

EDWARD S. CURTIS. Plate 375 The Oldest Man of Nootka, 1915. 15.5x10.8" image on 17.6x12.3" copper photogravure plate. Plate date 1916. From Portfolio 11, The Nootka, Haida and Vancouver Island, of The North American Indian. Engraved on plate recto: Plate 375 / The Oldest Man of Nootka, 1915 / From Copyright Photograph 1915 by E.S. Curtis / Photogravure John Andrew & Son. Curtis wrote about this image: "This individual is the most primitive relic in the modernized village of Nootka. Stark naked, he may be seen hobbling about the beach or squatting in the sun, living in thought in the golden age when the social and ceremonial customs of his people were what they had always been." To make the photogravure prints from the negative Curtis created a glass positive, that he would edit on and then working with the great photogravure printing companies in Boston, John Andrew & Son that became Suffolk Engraving Company, they made over 2200 copper plates from which the photogravures were to be printed. These plates were then steel faced for small printing runs then refaced, preserving the original image that was etched into the copper plate. Aesthetically they are brilliant shiny copper almost gold like aesthetic objects on which the image glows; they have sold for as much as $700,000. As opposed the edition of approximately 300 photogravures that were made from each plate and open edition chemical prints Curtis made in his studios, these are unique photographic objects.