1. FREDERICK MONSEN Talaskwaptiwa, The High Priest, Pueblo Of Walpi, Arizona 1907, Gelatin Silver Print 9.75x8" ASG# FM/1300

2. FREDERICK MONSEN The wife and little daughter of the Governor of Isleta 1890 Silver Gelatin Print 9.75x8" printed 1907 c ASG# FM/1301

3. FREDERICK MONSEN Isleta girl, New Mexico. 1890, printed 1907 c, silver Gelatin Print, 6.2x8.7" ASG# FM/1299

These three small Monsen prints were made as ethnographic research studies as was much of the work made of Native Americans in the 19th and early 20th century.

Frederick Monsen (b. 1865, Bergen Norway; d. 1929) moved to Salt Lake City with his family in 1868. His father was a photographer and he trained as a painter. By 1886 Monsen was avidly if unofficially photographing in the Southwest with the U.S. Geological (Mexican American Boundary) Survey. He photographed with Generals Crook and Miles at the end of the campaign against the Apaches in 1886, the Brown Stanton Survey (1889-1890), the Salton Sea Expedition (1891), Death Valley and other California Deserts (1893), Southwestern Indians (1894 - 1911), the Yosemite National Park Boundary Survey (1896). A colleague of Adam Clark Vroman and Arnold Genthe, Monsen favored a handheld Kodak camera, which allowed him to photograph his subjects in candid rather than posed pictures. In 1906, his studio and negatives were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. To reconstruct his images after the loss he made copy negatives and borrowed negatives from Vroman and others. His gelatin silver print enlargements are among the most magnificent ever made of the Southwest Indian tribes. The largest collection of about 400 prints is at the Huntington Library in San Marino (Pasadena), California. He was a frequent lecturer at the Explorer's club in New York, where he often resided for long periods of time.

FM/1300 Very Good Hopi priest moderate wear and handling, fold not cracking emulsion right side, light edge and corner wear, emulsion missing, writing and notes in various hands verso, linen tape in two spots verso.
FM/1301 Isleta Mother and Child, mild wear, abrasions, wear, upper left corner shows a fold, writing and notes in various hands verso, print is matted and is attached on verso with linen tape to over mat.
FM/1299 Isleta Girl has 4 horizontal folds, staining lower left, otherwise minor wear ions with notes and writing in various hands verso