Between Two Worlds

Lee Marmon - ca.1990 - photographer unknown

We went to the Albuquerque Museum this morning to see the Lee Marmon exhibit, Between Two Worlds. There is a small but representative selection of Marmon's work. The narrative commentary at the front of the exhibit is disappointing because it just parrots a tiring, contrived comparison of the work of Marmon to his predecessors, Edward Curtis and Charles Lummis.

There is no arguing the fact that Lee Marmon, a native son of the Laguna Pueblo, had easy access to his Native American subjects which made them comfortable in front of his camera. Contrary to the assertions made in the exhibit, however, there is very little real difference between his photographic approach and techniques and those of Curtis and Lummis.

The exhibit material implies that Curtis and Lummis were condescending toward their Native American subjects, and that they misrepresented them as members of a disappearing race. I  don't recall reading anything said by either that portrayed their subjects with any negativity. Curtis endured great hardship in documenting all the tribal groups he could find and never realized any significant income from his efforts.  Lummis lived in the Isleta Pueblo and clearly enjoyed the trust and affection of his neighbors.

As for the portrayal of the American Indians as in danger of disappearance toward the end of the 19th Century, I think we can cut Curtis and Lummis some slack. The indigenous people of the country had by that time been subjected to a couple centuries of genocidal warfare. Additionally, it has become increasing clear that well into the Twentieth Century there was a concerted effort undertaken jointly by the government and religious organizations to stamp out indigenous languages and cultures by ripping the children away from their families and confining them in prison-like boarding schools. (Marmon ran away from the Albuquerque Indian School.)

The charge that Curtis and Lummis posed their subjects, sometimes using artificial lighting, simply overlooks the realities of 19th Century photography.  Curtis and Lummis made their photographs on glass plates using large and cumbersome view cameras. Spontaneous snapshots of everyday life were not a practical option, though Lummis actually got pretty close to that with some of his cyanotypes. 

Marmon made most of his pictures of Pueblo people in outdoor settings and had no need for artificial lighting.  He did often use a somewhat cumbersome press camera, but it was loaded with film that was vastly more sensitive than those 19th Century glass plates of his predecessors. Marmon used flash for his commercial celebrity portrait work as was the custom in those days.

Curtis certainly did go to some lengths to portray his subjects mostly in traditional regalia which was not often seen outside ceremonial activities. But, guess what; most of Marmon's pictures of his people show them wearing traditional garb and jewelry which they clearly donned for the occasion. Not unsurprisingly, as the exhibit material points out, Marmon never had a negative thing to say about the photographic approaches of Curtis and Lummis. In fact, Marmon was doing his best to emulate the posing conventions of his day which were not all that different from the approaches of Curtis and Lummis.

It seems to me it should be possible to recognize what is unique and valuable in Marmon's accomplishments without trying to turn Curtis and Lummis into villainous antagonists in a way that Marmon himself never endorsed.