Curtis Legacy Foundation – On a Mission to Preserve Native American History
The Curtis Legacy Foundation is Reconnecting Voices & Images of Modern Native Americans with their Descendants Project
By Shawnee Real Bird
The Curtis Legacy Foundation stands at the intersection of history, representation, and resurgence. Its mission is not only to preserve the vast photographic and ethnographic work of Edward S. Curtis, but to evolve that legacy by centering the voices and images of modern Native Americans.
Edward Curtis, known affectionately by indigenous communities as Shadow Catcher, spent the early decades of the 20th century photographing over 100 Indigenous nations. His 20-volume opus, The North American Indian, comprises more than 2,000 images and thousands of pages of documentation. These photographs are revered for their detail and artistry, but their legacy is complex. Created through a colonial lens during a time of aggressive assimilation, they both preserved culture and filtered it through a non-Native perspective.
Bottom Right: Vanessa Red Hawk Thompson – by Curtis’s great-grandson, John Graybill, 2023. Top Right: Vanessa’s great-great-grandfather, Red Hawk by Edward Curtis 1905.
These contemporary portraits offer something Curtis’s work cannot: self-representation. Where the early images often reflected romanticized depictions, today’s photographs amplify Indigenous agency, resilience, and voice. The visual medium becomes a mirror, not a museum exhibit.
In addition to reclaiming identity through new photography, the Foundation is also committed to bringing Curtis’s Unpublished Work to light. Among his extensive documentation were thousands of images and stories that never made it into public circulation—left in archives or forgotten in personal collections. These unpublished images are critical, not simply as lost pieces of history, but as sacred fragments of family and cultural memory.
For the families represented in Curtis’s photographs—especially those in the unpublished series—reconnecting with these images represents a connection that has been established since time immemorial. The Foundation ensures that these materials are returned to their rightful communities, where they can be interpreted through Indigenous knowledge systems rather than academic abstraction. This act of cultural repatriation turns once-silenced portraits into vibrant oral histories.
Through curated exhibitions, educational initiatives, and community partnerships, the Edward Curtis Legacy Foundation facilitates a powerful reimagining: one where Native people are not artifacts of a fading past but active storytellers of their own legacy.
In an era dominated by images, who holds the lens—and who controls the story—matters. By placing Curtis’s archive in dialogue with modern Indigenous perspectives, the Foundation helps shift the narrative from disappearance to presence, from being observed to being seen.
Curtis’s camera once captured shadows. Today, those shadows are rising, speaking, and reclaiming the light. To learn more and help support this initiative click their link below:
www.curtislegacyfoundation.org
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