At first, the composition of this image appears too modern for its age, until we see it is by Edward S Curtis, who helped define modern photography. This image shows a reclining Zuni Indian (or Native American to be pc), his back toward the camera, propped up on one elbow and facing forward so his face is in profile. He is mixing pigments in a small bowl. He wears nothing but a loin-cloth and a rag wrapped around his forehead — and, we see, an earring. He is lying on a plain dark blanket, and in the background it looks like a plain tarp has been draped to block out the distracting clutter — though a corner is too short, so part of some unidentifiable object is visible behind it. The photo was copyrighted in 1925, though the original image may have been earlier.

Edward Sheriff Curtis was born in 1868 in Wisconsin, though the family soon moved to Minnesota, and when Edward was 19 they moved to Washington Territory. He began his photographic career in 1891 when he bought an interest in the studio of Rasmus Rothi in Seattle. Less than a year later he left Rothi to join Thomas Guptill as a partner in another studio.

About 1895 Curtis began photographing Native Americans, and did so with such sensitivity and artistry that by 1901 J P Morgan offered him $75,000 to produce a series of 1,500 photographs of traditional Native American life, to be published in 20 volumes. Curtis took over 40,000 photographs and also recorded folklore and history, providing a wealth of anthropological data — although at the same time he staged some of his photographs in a manner that made them historically inaccurate. After that brush with success, Curtis fell into financial difficulties, and died in 1952, if not quite in abject poverty still far from the wealth his talents deserved.