PBA Galleries

3 volumes. Foreword by Theodore Roosevelt. Text volume: xx, 153, [2] pp. Portrait frontispiece. Errata slip tipped in at rear. 35.5x25 cm (14x10"). Small portfolio: Five contents leaves and 75 gravure plates from photographs by Edward Curtis, one with hand-coloring. 34x28.5 cm (13¼x11¼"). Large portfolio: Contents leaf and 36 gravure plates from photographs by Edward Curtis. 59.5x48.5 cm (23½x19"). Uniformly bound in full brown calf, lettered in gilt, portfolios cloth-lined and with ribbon ties. No. 77 of 228 sets (of which only 99 where actually produced).

The text and selection of plates are abridged from Volumes, 1, 2, 12, 16, & 17 of Curtis's famed twenty-volume magnum opus "The North American Indian." The Classic Gravure Corporation (CGC) was established to purchase the original 2220 copperplates of Curtis’ The North American Indian and reproduce the work in an edition similar to the original. The plates were purchased from Cerro Gordo Associates of Santa Fe, who had purchased them from Boston publisher Charles E. Lauriat who had in turn purchased them in 1935 from the J.P. Morgan estate. The plates were transported to Santa Fe where Master-Printer, Deli Sacilotto, was hired to supervise the printing for this limited edition. John Koller was chosen to produce handmade 100% long fiber cotton, acid free, natural deckle archival paper. E.S. Curtis’s signature was incorporated into each folio sheet as the watermark. Roswell Bookbinding was engaged to produce both the folio and octavo size full leather portfolio cases for the sets. The accompanying text volumes were printed by letterpress by the Amaranth Press on handmade Italian Fabriano Umbria archival paper. In May 1979, Curtis’s daughters , Florence Curtis Graybill and Billy Curtis Ingram visited Santa Fe and passionately endorsed the CGC project.  “We find ourselves quite at a loss to put in words how much the visit to Santa Fe has meant to us. We were especially impressed with how much effort you (CGC) expended to get these images to their present state, those beautiful inks, and the cotton fiber paper made by hand really excited us.”