Kindred Spirits: Photographers Edward Curtis and E. G. Barnhill

The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art recently held an exhibit celebrating the work of acclaimed photographer and ethnologist Edward S. Curtis. Best known for his monumental early 20th-century publication of the North American Indian, Curtis took photos of indigenous Americans over 23 years beginning in 1907. The publication includes twenty volumes, features more than 100 native nations and tribes, and contains over 2,200 images. The original work is exceedingly rare with fewer than 300 sets printed. In 2021 a set sold for $950,000.

While this work is an important archive of the culture of native peoples at the beginnings of the last century, it is also a reflection of Curtis’s artistry and mastery of photographic mediums. He employed many techniques and processes including photogravure, cyanotypes, platinum prints, silver bromide border prints, and sepia toning. He is also known for his gold-tone photographs printed on glass and backed with a liquid gold wash. While he did not invent the process, he was one of the first to experiment with it and perfect it. He took the liberty of calling the process “Curt-Tones.” The liquid wash was composed of powered gold pigment and typically banana oil, though actually he seldom used it.

While Curtis was photographing for the North American Indian series, there was a far less celebrated photographer here in St. Petersburg: Esmond Grenard Barnhill, or E. G. Barnhill for short.  

Barnhill was born in 1894 in South Carolina but soon his family moved to Georgia. He later relocated to Palm Beach, Florida, where he apprenticed as a photographer. He arrived in St. Petersburg about 1913. After a few years he opened the Florida Photo Studio at 17 3rd Street North in downtown St. Pete. He began by processing film, especially for tourists, and selling cameras and other photo supplies. Barnhill also photographed notable scenes and landmarks about the city and eventually had these reproduced as prints, postcards, and artwork. He took photos of city attractions such as the annual Festival of the States Parade. He sold the Festival finished 8×10 glossy photo prints to the tourists, according to his son Jack “by the thousands.”

While Edward Curtis did not photograph in Florida, there seems to be a possible connection between Curtis and Barnhill. As a youth Barnhill made family trips to the west, sojourns he continued after arriving in St. Pete. In 1916 he made a trip to Alaska. Barnhill biographer and fine arts and photography authority Gary Monroe, in his book E. G. Barnhill: Florida Photographer, Adventurer, Entrepreneur, notes that “it is entirely possible that Barnhill first became familiar with Curtis’s artistic practices during this 1916 trip…” (It is known that Curtis was traveling extensively in the west in early 1916 and was also in Seattle where his home and studio were located.)

Barnhill continued his trips west throughout the 1920s and later. In addition to his profession as a photographer, he became an entrepreneur developing Indian trading posts, curio shops, and attractions. In 1925 he opened trading posts in Gallup, New Mexico, and Estes Park, Colorado, which he operated during the St. Pete off-season. Later, in 1931, he opened a trading post in Boulder City, Nevada, where the Boulder Dam was under construction (attracting rare tourists during the 1930s Great Depression). There he advertised himself as both an Indian trader and a photographer. Monroe reports he sold Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, and Seminole handcrafts while also photographing construction of the dam. Still later, Barnhill opened Indian curio and tourist shops in Ft. Lauderdale, Palm Bay, and Kissimmee, Florida, and in Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, and Georgia. Some of these he continued to operate until 1959. 

In St. Pete, Barnhill operated the Indian Trading Post at the Million Dollar Pier, predecessor to today’s Pier. On one occasion he enlisted Seminole Indians, including Chiefs Ben Tommy and Robert Osceola, to come to his Trading Post to perform “native dances and tribal rituals.”  Barnhill’s focus on Indian-associated business ventures extended to his St. Pete photography studio. In 1933 the name of Barnhill’s studio was changed to Barnhill’s Camera Shop and Indian Store. In addition to the 1916 visit west, it is also possible Barnhill crossed paths with Edward Curtis on one of these other occasions. Curtis was also photographing in the southwest in 1925 and in Alaska in 1927.

Before the introduction of Kodachrome transparency film in 1935, photographers experimented with various ways of coloring black-and-white film prints. Color pigments were applied to the black and white photo. Barnhill was the first to offer this service in the St. Petersburg area. Later he applied the same technique to black-and-white postcards, which he sold for five cents. His use of a special New York Albertype printing process further added to the refinement of his postcards.

Eventually he began hand-painting his own photos using a photogravure process wherein a copper plate is grained and then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which has been exposed to a film positive, then etched, resulting in a high-quality intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph. Each resulting print was then painted by hand. 

In 1933 Barnhill entered six of his scenic Florida photographic images in the Second International Photographic Exhibition in Vienna, Austria. His photograph “When the Clouds Go Drifting By” was awarded a prize for the “technique shown and the fine pictorial work.” Fine art and photography authority Gary Monroe observes, “The subtle richness of Barnhill’s airbrushed-tinted photographs captured Florida’s distinctly clear, brisk colors. At times his dashes of brushed-on highlights approached the neon colors that might be seen at sunset…. Barnhill created pictures that functioned…as windows through which to see the real Florida.” 

According to Monroe, Barnhill’s traditional and hand-colored pictures on paper established him as one of Florida’s key photographers of his era. However, Barnhill’s most notable contribution to photography is said to be the use of uranium rather than gold pigment to replicate Curtis’s glass print process. According to Julie A. Wilson, formerly of the Fine Arts Museum, “It was a painting technique he learned from famed photographer Edward S. Curtis as a teenager and he later sourced his supplies directly from Germany, before anyone understood the element’s radioactive potential. Falling somewhere between photography and vernacular art, these ‘glowing’ works combine ethereal beauty with Barnhill’s unique sense of showmanship.” 

Barnhill wanted to use colors other than the gold wash used by Curtis for his glass images.  He tried a number of pigments and finally discovered that uranium dyes would achieve the look he wanted. As Monroe recounts, Barnhill had gone to Germany to study lithography before settling in St. Pete. He also had an interest in minerology and may have become familiar with uranium there. (In 1929 the St. Petersburg Times reported that Barnhill left the city for Germany to study new processes in color photography, and that he would also “make an extensive study of Hertzian waves and the science of analyzing measurements from [an] electric mineral calculator for locating minerals under ground.”)  Finally, given his knowledge about Native Americans he may have known they used uranium to create paints for ceremonial decoration.

While there were many photographers who helped promote St. Petersburg in its formative years, Barnhill did so with a special sense of photographic knowledge and artistry. Both his glass images and colorized postcards have become special collector’s imagery to many who appreciate our city’s unique history and sense of place. While an encounter between Barnhill and Curtis has never been documented, the two artists were certainly kindred spirits. Both had a deep love of photography and appreciation for Native American culture. 

Edward S. Curtis died in Los Angeles in 1952 at the age of 84. Esmond G. Barnhill died in Gainesville, Florida, in 1987, at the age of 93.

Will Michaels is former director and trustee of the St. Petersburg Museum of History, and the author of The Making of St. Petersburg and the Hidden History of St. Petersburg. Reach him at at wmichaels2222@gmail.com.