BBHC Showcases N.Y. Photog Käsebier
Monday, April 5th, 2010
From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center comes this release:
According to Michelle Anne Delaney, Curator of the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier embarked on a deeply personal project in 1898.
“Her new undertaking was inspired by viewing the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden,” Delaney explains. “Within a matter of weeks, Käsebier began a unique and special project photographing the Sioux Indians traveling with the show, formally and informally, in her 5th Avenue studio.”
Delaney brings Käsebier’s work to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in an exhibition titled: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, on view in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery April 10 – August 8. On Friday, April 9, 5 – 7 p.m., a Patrons Preview for Historical Center members precedes the public opening April 10.
Delaney describes the collection as “original platinum and gum-bichromate photographs printed from original glass negatives, pictograph drawings made by the Sioux Indians while at Käsebier’s studio, historic camera and studio equipment, and select items representing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from the Smithsonian and Historical Center collections.
“These prints rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work,” Delaney continues. “Eventually, she became the leading portraitist of her time and an extraordinary art photographer. Since 1969, more than one hundred of these photographs have been preserved in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.”
Not many vistas are as powerful as Jackson Hole’s Teton Range. Only the Grand Canyon outranks our mountains. The art of capturing that great national park is touched upon in the 
The canyon is a landscape; it is an abstract composition blending nature’s perfect forms. The exhibition is a collaboration between the 
A hundred painted envelopes are included in the Smithsonian exhibit, that originated in 1995. Artists create envelopes for the competition, their subject matter based on a stamp or a theme chosen by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Ah, if every letter were thus conceived! The show is heartrending in its beauty. It is nectar. Step softly along the library’s walls to find artwork that seems rendered by fairies; 
elegant, wispy, fables for a 4 x 6 inch tablet. You will choose your own favorites, but I mention a few of mine 
here: Cathy Chilton, of New Mexico, fancied “Water, Earth, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon”, an envelope inspired by stamps portraying those locations. The envelope is creased like an accordion, with alternating slices of bottle green, baked canyon orange, and an indigenous lizard. This Crafts-styled piece stands in sturdy comparison to envelopes weighted with laced grapevines and golden pears hanging heavy on the branch. Humorous takes on the funny papers include a work picturing Popeye knocking the stuffing out of the mail, and a careening “Blondie and Dagwood” sketch. “Celebrating Nature” bears a regal butterfly, emerald on its envelope, wings and antennae dipping into lacey calligraphy addressing the work.
Save your letters and envelopes. As exhibition curator Ester Washington notes, “Letters were once precious possessions, tied in bundles with silk ribbon, and kept safe in scented drawer.” We can recreate that time. Let’s try.