Photography by indigenous peoples of the Americas is an art form that began in the late 19th century and has expanded in the 21st century, including digital photography, underwater photography, and a wide range of alternative processes. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have used photography as a means of expressing their lives and communities from their own perspectives. Native photography stands in contrast to the ubiquitous photography of indigenous peoples by non-natives, which has often been criticized as being staged, exoticized, and romanticized.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas embraced photography in the 19th century. Some even owned and operated their own photography studios, such as Antonio Calderón Sandoval (Purépecha, ca. 1847–unknown), the grandfather of Frida Kahlo; Benjamin Haldane (1874–1941), Tsimshian of Metlakatla Village on Annette Island, Alaska; [1] and Richard Throssel (1882–1933), Cree of Montana. Max T. Vargas (father of pin-up artist Alberto Vargas), was a successful Mestizo photographer in Arequipa, Peru, who taught photography to Martín Chambi (Quechua, 1891–1973), an Indigenous miner. Jennie Ross Cobb (1881–1959), Cherokee Nation of Park Hill, Oklahoma, began developing her own film as a young child and photographed her college classmates, family, neighbors, and students.
The works of these early indigenous photographer stand in stark contrast to the romanticized images of non-native photographers. Recent scholarship by Mique’l Askren (Tsimshian-Tlingit) on the photographs of Benjamin A. Haldane has analyzed the functions that Haldane's photographs served for his community: as markers of success by having European-American-style formal portraits taken, and as markers of the continuity of potlaching and customary ceremonials by having photographs taken in ceremonial regalia. This second category is particularly significant because the use of the ceremonial regalia was against the law in Canada between 1885-1951. [2]
Native American boarding schools were important centers for photography at the turn of the century. John Leslie (Puyallup) learned photography at Carlisle Indian School. In 1895, Leslie published a book of his photography and exhibited his photographs at the 1895 Atlanta International Exposition [3] [4] By 1906 Carlisle Indian School built a state-of-the-art photography studio and taught photography classes to its Native students. [4] Parker McKenzie (1897–1999) and his wife Nettie Odlety McKenzie (1896–1978) purchased cameras and took photographs while they attended Phoenix Indian School in 1916.
Peter Pitseolak (1902–1973), Inuk from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, documented Inuit life in the mid-20th century while dealing with challenges presented by the harsh climate and extreme light conditions of the Canadian Arctic. He developed his film himself in his igloo, and some of his photos were shot by oil lamps.
Horace Poolaw (1906–1984), Kiowa, shot over 2,000 images of his neighbors and relatives in Western Oklahoma from the 1920s onward.
Jean Fredericks (b. 1906), Hopi, had to carefully negotiate cultural views towards photography and made a point of not offering his portraits of Hopi people for sale to the public. [5]
For a 1980s exhibit of Hopi photographers at Northlight Gallery in Tempe, Arizona, Victor Masayesva, Jr. (Hopi) explained how Hopis protect their privacy from the flood of photographs of them and their community by non-Hopi people. Hopi photographers know that certain subjects, especially ceremonial dances are not meant to be photographed. "The camera which is available to us is a weapon that will violate the silences and secrets so essential to our group survival," he wrote. [6] Many Hopi photographers do not sell their work to outsides. [7]
The establishment of tribal newspapers, such as the Qua Toqti and Hopi Tribal News both in the 1970s, created a demand for Native photojournalists. [8] Owen Seumptewa (Hopi) became photographic consultant to his tribe in 1976. [9]
While many native photographers were interested in documenting tribal life, Luis González Palma (Mestizo, b. 1957) borrows from a Victorian aesthetic to create haunting, mysterious portraits of Mayan and mestizo people, especially women, from his native Guatemala. He shoots in black and white but then hand-tints the photographs in sepia tones. [10]
The first Canadian national conference of indigenous photographers took place in March 1985 in Hamilton, Ontario, and from that the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers' Association (NIIPA) was formed. [11] During the 1980s, NIIPA had fifty members from North America. [12]
Today more Native people are professional art photographers; however, acceptance to the genre has met with challenges. Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Navajo-Muscogee-Seminole), has not only established a successful career with her own work, she has also been an advocate for the entire field of Native American photography. She has curated shows and organized conferences at the C.N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis featuring Native American photographers. Tsinhnahjinnie wrote the book, Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photographers. Larry McNeil (Tlingit) is a fine art photographer and professor who has mentored many emerging indigenous photographers. Together with Tsinhnahjinnie, McNeil curated New Native Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art to draw more attention to the genre of photography during the 2011 Santa Fe Indian Market. [13]
Native photographers taking their skills into the fields of art videography, photo-collage, digital photography, and digital art.
Martín Chambi Jiménez was a Peruvian photographer, originally from Puno, in southern Peru. He was one of the first major Indigenous Latin American photographers.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
The visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes Central America and Greenland. The Siberian Yupiit, who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yupiit, are also included.
Jean Fredericks (1906–1990) was a Hopi photographer. He grew up in Old Oraibi, Arizona, a village located on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation.
Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie is a Seminole-Muscogee-Navajo photographer, museum director, curator, and professor. She is living in Davis, California. She serves as the director of the C.N. Gorman Museum and teaches at University of California, Davis.
Benjamin Alfred Haldane was a Tsimshian professional photographer from Metlakatla, Alaska.
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to Indigenous peoples in Canada, comprising the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
This is a chronological list of significant or pivotal moments in the development of Native American art or the visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Earlier dates, especially before the 18th century, are mostly approximate.
Native American women in the arts are women who are from Indigenous peoples from what is now the mainland United States who are visual art professionals. Women in Native American communities have been producing art intertwined with spirituality, life, and beauty for centuries. Women have worked to produce traditional art, passing these crafts down generation by generation, as well as contemporary art in the form of photography, printmaking, and performance art.
Kate Cory was an American photographer and artist. She studied art in New York, and then worked as commercial artist. She traveled to the southwestern United States in 1905 and lived among the Hopi for several years, recording their lives in about 600 photographs.
The North American Native Museum, or Nordamerika Native Museum (NONAM), is a museum run by the City of Zurich, Switzerland. The museum specializes in the conservation, documentation, and presentation of ethnographic objects and artwork of Native American, First Nation, and Inuit cultures.
Larry McNeil is a Native American photographer and printmaker. His photographs range on subjects and formats from realist portraits to tribal elders, from abstract cityscapes to electronic manipulations of tribal environments. His images are considered personally meaningful as they are representative of tribal realities and highlight the sensitivity behind the representation of Native Americans.
Erica Lord is an Alaska Native artist, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who identifies herself as a mixed-race "cultural limbo."
Matika Lorraine Wilbur, whose indigenous name is Tsa-Tsiq, meaning "She Who Teaches," is a Swinomish and Tulalip photographer and educator from Washington state. She is best known for her photography project, Project 562.
Jennie Ross Cobb is the first known Native American woman photographer in the United States. She began taking pictures of her Cherokee community in the late 19th century. The Oklahoma Historical Society used her photos of the Murrell Home to restore that building, which is now a museum. Trained as a teacher, Cobb worked as a florist in Texas before returning to Oklahoma to spearhead the restoration of the Murrell Home.
Victor Masayesva Jr. is a Hopi filmmaker, video artist, and photographer. Born on the Hopi Reservation of Arizona and growing up in Hotevilla, Masayesva's artistic career reflects his active participation with the Hopi community and his body of work promoting Hopi culture and worldview. Scholar Martin Padget considers Masayesva "one of the most influential Indigenous filmmakers and photographers of his generation." Masayesva's films and photographs are diverse and complex in nature, often employing diverse visual languages, and an experimental approach towards media. The majority of his films are in the Hopi language and are destined for his community, especially to pass-on traditional teachings to youth. Masayesva has also been personally involved in promoting indigenous media, both in the United States and internationally.
Zoë Marieh Urness is a photographer of Alaskan Tlingit and Cherokee Native American heritage.
Gorman Museum of Native American Art is a museum focused on Native American and Indigenous artists, founded in 1973 at University of California, Davis in Davis, California. It was formerly known as the Carl Nelson Gorman Museum, and the C.N. Gorman Museum.