Lost cultures of North America come to Beijing

　By Chu Meng

　　A photo exhibition on North America’s natives by Edward Sherriff Curtis opened this Wednesday at the National Library of China in Beijing. Titled “Sacred Legacy,” e exhibition is presented by the Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy in Beijing together with the Library Society of China, and will be on display next weekend.

　　Photographer and ethnographer Edward S Curtis created an irreplaceable record of more than 80 of Native America’s native nations, a record first published between 1907 and 1930, which, after decades of obscurity in rare book rooms and private collections, is now eperiencing a renaissance around the world.

　　This unique exhibition explores the extraordinary diversity among Native American peoples, their history and culture, the diversity of American society, and the aesthetic achievement of Edward S Curtis.

　　The images are representative of the different cultural and geographical regions in which Curtis photographed and illustrate his artistry in portrait and landscape.

　　Curtis said in 1906, “Te ordinary photographic print, however good, lacks depth and translucency. We all know how beautiful the stones and pebbles in the limpid brook of the forest look, yet when we take the same iridescent pebbles from the water and then dry them, then they are dull and lifeless; so it is with the orthodox photographic print, but in the Goldtones all the translucency is retained and they are full of life and sparkle as an opal.