Gorgeous water
views from a
collector’s home in
Bainbridge Island,
Washington.W
hen our collectors married in 2010, she
thought his house was “a little too much
him.” The first thing of hers to arrive was
a 110-year-old Steinway her parents gave her on her 10th
birthday. Since then, they have collaborated on building
a collection of art that might have surprised both of them
when they first got together. His rods, reels and trophy
heads, and his Native American artifacts, now live
harmoniously with American impressionist paintings and
the complete set of 20 volumes and 20 photogravure
portfolios of Edward S. Curtis’ The North American
Indian, 1907 to 1930. “We both have to like something
a lot,” she says. “Sometimes he’ll ask, ‘Do you mind if
I go for this?’ The majority of the work we both really like.”
Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) moved to the Pacific
Northwest in 1887 where he became acquainted with
the Native population. His first Indian portrait was of
Chief Seattle’s daughter, Princess Angeline. “I paid the
princess a dollar for each picture I made,” Curtis recalled
many years later. “This seemed to please her greatly, and
she indicated that she preferred to spend her time having
pictures taken to digging clams.” His interest in making
portraits expanded.The collector explains, “Curtis rescued a group of
naturalists who were climbing Mount Rainier, one of
whom was Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the U.S. Division of
Forestry. Pinchot introduced him to Teddy Roosevelt, who
wrote the introduction to the first volume and encouraged
J.P. Morgan to underwrite Curtis’s passion.
“I first saw his photogravures at my grandmother’s
house in Maine. But they were later stolen,” the collector
continues. “Granny Merrill was big on Indians and Indian
lore. She and I would hunt for arrowheads along the
brook in the church woods. We had serious discussions
about whether a particular rock had been ‘worked,’ and,
if so, for what purpose—perhaps a knife or a hide scraper.
Or perhaps just a chip from an apprentice fletcher who
had not yet attained the skill to make something that an
elderly woman and a small boy could identify as a lethal
weapon. After I moved West, I would occasionally send
her points of jasper and obsidian, jewels in comparison
to the workings we collected by her stream. They would
all be placed in a glass topped curio table, to be visited
and discussed whenever I was East.
“I’ve always fantasized that she was one of the original
subscribers to Curtis’s portfolios, but I haven’t been able toRUBY
in the ROUGH
Art and photography come together in one stunning collection
on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
By John O’Hern Photography by Francis Smith
Opposite page: Above the
beam in the dining room
are, left to right, Yo u n g
Lady at Evening Tea, circa
1907, by Richard Emil
Miller (1875-1943), and
Poplars Along the Seine,
1904, by Theodore Earl
Butler (1861-1936). To
the right of the fireplace
is Russell Chatham’s
Montana Landscape, 1985.
Above the table in the
hallway is Rocks Along
the New England Coast,
1871, by Francis Augustus
Silva (1835-1886). Above
the tiger maple chest is
Coming Home, a scene of
Alaska by Eustace Paul
Ziegler (1881-1969).