Edward S. Curtis Collection

I stumbled across the Library of Congress online catalog of public domain photographs and prints and was totally fascinated by the Edward S. Curtis Collection of photographs of Native Americans.

I was very inspired by many of his photographs and decided to do a series where I colorize the original B&W image and then do a digital painting. This is one of my first attempts.

High quality prints are available on my website

More after the break

 

This is the original black and white image from the Library of Congress.

Here is the colorized version:

This is from the site:

About this Collection

The Edward S. Curtis Collection offers a unique glimpse into Curtis's work with indigenous cultures. The more than 2,400 silver-gelatin photographic prints were acquired by the Library of Congress through copyright deposit from about 1900 through 1930. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in Curtis's multi-volume work, The North American Indian. The collection includes a large number of individual or group portraits, as well as traditional and ceremonial dress, dwellings and other structures, agriculture, arts and crafts, rites and ceremonies, dances, games, food preparation, transportation, and scenery. More than 1,000 of the photographs have been digitized and individually described.


Edward S. Curtis Collection
Rights and Restrictions Information

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 20540-4730
Images in this collection are considered to be in the public domain.
Access: Permitted; subject to P&P policy on serving originals.
Reproduction (photocopying, hand-held camera copying, photoduplication and other forms of copying allowed by "fair use"): Permitted, subject to P&P policy on copying.
Publication and other forms of distribution: Permitted. Photographs in this collection were deposited for copyright bewtween 1899 and 1929. Works copyrighted before 1923 are now in the public domain. The copyright for the works after 1923 was not renewed, so they are also in the public domain. (See the Copyright Office's Circular 1, "Copyright Basics, " page 6).

Credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Edward S. Curtis Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]