Richard Throssel was a Cree

Cree

The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...

 photographer, who documented life on the Crow Reservation at the beginning of the 20th century.

Background

Richard Throssel was born in Marengo, Washington in 1882. Throssel is best known for his photographs of the Crow Reservation from 1902-1911. These photographs of the Crows

Crow Nation

The Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a Siouan people of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone River valley, which extends from present-day Wyoming, through Montana and into North Dakota. They now live on a reservation south of Billings, Montana and in several...

, which cover ceremonies, dances, scenes of everyday life, as well as individual and group portraits, are not only priceless historical documents they are, very simply, beautiful photographs. Though Throssel was not Crow, his quarter blood of Canadian Cree heritage and 1906 adoption into the Crow Nation afforded him intimate moments, which non-Indian photographers could not experience with the Crow People of Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

.

After a long bought with rheumatism, it was recommended he live in a drier climate. At the age of twenty, Throssel moved to the Crow Reservation in Montana as a clerk for the Indian Services office. He was exposed to the outstanding art environment that existed on the Crow Reservation. Throssel observed stunning Crow beading, narrative ledger art

Ledger Art

Ledger Art is a term for Plains Indian narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth. Ledger art was primarily from the 1860s to about 1900, although some of the old style drawing continues to the 1930s. There is also a contemporary group of accomplished Native American artists who work in the...

, and the paintings and photographs of non-Indian artists, Joseph Henry Sharp

Joseph Henry Sharp

Joseph Henry Sharp was an American painter and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which he is considered the "Spiritual Father". Sharp was one of the earliest European-American artists to visit Taos, New Mexico, which he saw in 1893 with John Hauser when he visited in 1893...

 and Edward S. Curtis

Edward S. Curtis

Edward Sheriff Curtis was a photographer of the American West and of Native American peoples.-Early life:...

. Through painting lessons with Sharp, Throssel learned not only technique; he acquired the principles of design and composition.

Career

Throssel began to photograph shortly after arriving on the Crow Reservation, but it was not until 1905 that "Throssel submitted his first set of photographs, twenty-nine in number, for copyright." This same year Throssel met ethnographer and photographer Edward S. Curtis. Curtis’ influence on Throssel was apparent in Throssel’s 1907 set of copyrighted images. In this series Throssel employed vivid lighting with sometimes-staged arrangements, lending towards a much more sentimental view of Crow life. Throssel was also well known for his photographs of “Crow couples, families and children, which are especially striking as the love and warmth expressed by the families are so contrary to how we normally see Native men, women, and children depicted in early photography”(Alison 235). Even though Throssel was part of the early cliché style of depicting Native Peoples his approach also lent itself towards photographs of subjects caught in the moment. The Indian subjects of his photographs expressed a sense of familiarity that cannot be found in the work of non-Indian photographers.

Throssel continued to photograph the Crow Nation for the Wanamaker Expedition of 1908 and the Indian Service in 1909. After resigning as photographer for the Indian Service, Throssel with his wife of five years moved to Billings, Montana

Billings, Montana

Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, and is the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan area in over...

 to open up his own commercial photography business, The Throssel Photographic Company. It was here that he organized a brochure of his photographs, which he was renowned for entitled Western Classics.

In less than a decade, Throssel built a personal collection of nearly 1,000 photographs, including 180 portraits of Crow people, 99 portraits of other American Indians, 186 tipi

Tipi

A tipi is a Lakota name for a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins and wooden poles used by the nomadic tribes and sedentary tribal dwellers of the Great Plains...

 scenes, 63 Crow sacred and secular ceremonial images, and 352 images of daily life among the Crows of Montana In 1917, after a successful career as an artist, Throssel was twice elected Yellowstone County's representative to the Montana Legislature. Throssel’s interest in politics continued until his death in 1933.

External links

• The Outsider and the Native Eye: The Photographs of Richard Throssel
• Richard A. Throssel: Photographer of the Crows