The Standing Rock Portraits is the first book of turn-of-the-century photographer Frank Bennett Fiske’s photos ever released.
Though he never became nationally noted , former twentieth century lensman Frank Bennett Fiske was one of the country ’s most prolific portraitists of members the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota . Starting when he take over his wise man ’s photography studio apartment in Fort Yates , North Dakota when he was just 16 , he spend much of his calling documenting Native American living .
Fiske ’s seldom seen exposure are the subject of anew playscript , The Standing Rock Portraits . Curated by fellow North Dakotan Murray Lemley , a photographer and graphic room decorator , the Koran is satisfy with dozens of studio portraits Fiske shot of his Sioux neighbors .
1. A Sioux woman in traditional dress
Fiske grow up in Fort Yates , which in the late 19th century was home to both an Army station ( where his forefather worked ) and theheadquartersof the Standing Rock Sioux federation of tribes . The people he photographed in his studio apartment , bulge out in 1899 , were his friends and neighbour . photograph with a big studio camera , the photos are dramatic , formal portrait of men , women , and children from the U.S. Standing Rock Indian Agency .
2. A side portrait of an older man
Though he worked closely with his Native neighbor , and spent long time researching the history of the Sioux mass , Fiske was n’t free of racial preconception : His writings betray important disdainfulness toward them , and he supported the violent U.S. military machine intervention deploy to suppressed the Lakota Ghost Dance in 1890 , when the Army massacred at least 150 Native American Isle of Man , women , and children at hurt Knee . Only a few decades later , in 1917 , he wrote that the Sioux were a “ good natured people ” who were “ not at all dissatisfied with their lot in life . ” ( With shrinking territory , hale absorption , and a governing - imposedschool systemdesigned to strip Native children of their ethnic identity , his Sioux neighbors might have discord with that assessment . )
3. A man in a full headdress
Certainly , his photo exhibit a certain Romantic Movement toward his issue . In his portrait , Fiske showed Native Americans wear both present-day and traditional clothes . But the ones Fiske himself was most proud of framed tribesman as “ the baronial aborigine of the misty past tense , ” as late historian Frank Vyzralek couch it in the book ’s introduction .
4. A portrait of One Bull
Fiske photographed prominent tribe penis like One Bull and White Bull , the nephew of famousLakotaleader Sitting Bull .
5. A girl wearing an intricately beaded dress
Fiske also took family portrayal and photos of children in his studio .
6. A seated man wearing heavily beaded clothing and holding a rifle
Despite Fiske ’s flaws , his images provide an important historical record of the Standing Rock Sioux during a fraught period in the tribe ’s history . Fiske ’s sharp - focus photos provide item of traditional Sioux dress that ca n’t be realise in some of the fuzzier images taken by contemporaries like Edward Curtis . Fiske ’s portraits also show a wide range of garb than other photography of Native American people during the period — in a number of Curtis ’s photos , for instance , many male subject area are habilitate in the same shirt .
7. A woman wearing fur
As picture taking historian and creator Rod Slemmons writes in his essay in the book , Fiske " clearly had more familiarity with his subject field as people rather than abstract members of a ' vanishing wash , ' as Curtis sometimes refer to his subjects . "
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