The Vanishing Race, 1904

Description

Photographed in 1904, The Vanishing Race was Curtis’ signature piece and was the visual metaphor for the core conceptual underpinning of Curtis’ entire thirty-year project i.e., that Native Americans, as a culture, at least, were vanishing.

It became Curtis’ over-arching goal to create a record of them and their world before they disappeared forever. Curtis searched for an image to illustrate this idea for nearly four years before creating The Vanishing Race.

A century ago, it was by far and away Curtis’ most popular single image. Today it still remains a highly sought after classic.