ASPEN — — Mia Valley has been talking about Edward Sheriff Curtis, the photographer who zealously documented native American tribes in the early 20th century, for three decades. In her senior year at Aspen High, she got a job at Footloose & Fancy Things, a shop geared toward Southwestern items, including a substantial trade in Curtis material.
Valley worked there for nine years, then helped open another gallery that focused even more closely on Curtis. After a few years of handling Curtis as a private dealer, Valley opened Valley Fine Art in a street-level space in the Wheeler Opera House building.
Over that time, Valley has met her share of Curtis fanatics. A Wisconsin native, Curtis was without peer in documenting the life of American Indians — he not only took some 40,000 images of 80 tribes, but also recorded their music and language and did extensive writing about what he saw. Aspen has become something of an epicenter for Curtis collectors, with several galleries through the years dealing in his output.
Valley can’t say for certain that she is the world’s biggest Curtis dealer, but she does have the largest gallery collection in the country. So the Curtis-heads do find her, which Valley enjoys; she collects stories as much as she does prints.
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