Lot 26: Richard Throssel Crow Camp at the Little Big Horn

Nice original Richard Throssel Photograph. Entitled Crow Camp at the Little Big Horn. Framed with archival glass and matting. 14.5" by 19.5" framed. Richard Throssel (1882–1933) was a Cree photographer, who documented life on the Crow Reservation at the beginning of the 20th century. 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, 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cover ceremonies, dances, scenes of everyday life, as well as individual and group portraits, are not only priceless historical documents they are, very simply, beautiful photographs.[1] Though Throssel was not Crow, his quarter blood of Canadian Cree heritage and 1906 adoption into the Crow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. 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, and the paintings and photographs of non-Indian artists, Joseph Henry Sharp and Edward S. Curtis. Through painting lessons with Sharp, Throssel learned not only technique; he acquired the principles of design and composition.