ROLAND REED'S decision came at the last possible moment. By the dawn of the twentieth century, this country's Native Americans were living on reservations, their old ways of life unalterably
changed. Royal W. (Roland) Reed, Jr. (1864-1934) was one of a small number of professional photographers now known as Pictorialists who set out to document this "vanishing" race. Employing new
artistic techniques and often posing their subjects, the Pictorialists recreated the "noble savage" as they imagined them to have been in the past, not as they presently found them. Reed繒s
better known contemporary, Edward Curtis, enjoyed broad backing and financial support for his work. Reed did not; his work was solitary, self-directed, and self-funded. Critics agree that
Reed's photographs are equal, both technically and artistically, to those of Curtis, but his work has remained largely unknown and unpublished.
