Palm Springs Art Museum is introducing two new exhibitions at the main museum, while the Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, recently unveiled its new exhibition and also has two exciting events taking place this month. In addition, the Annenberg Theater debuts the new Fluid Art Series, the fabulous LUEY events continue, and new programs have been announced for Free Second Sunday and Galen First Fridays.

Opening at the main museum on February 20 and continuing through May 29, 2016, is Edward S. Curtis: One Hundred Masterworks. Beginning in 1900, Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) set out on a monumental quest to create an unprecedented, comprehensive record of the Indians of North America. The culmination of his 30-year project led to his magnum opus, The North American Indian, a twenty-volume, twenty-portfolio set of handmade books containing a selection of over 2,200 original photographs. Today One Hundred Masterworks stands as a landmark in the history of photography, book publishing, ethnography, and the history of the American West, producing an art historical record of enormous and irreplaceable importance.

One Hundred Masterworks presents an extraordinary selection of vintage photographs by Curtis that highlight both iconic and little known images that reveal the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual qualities of his art. The exhibition showcases seven photographic print mediums including photogravure, platinum, goldtone (orotone), toned and un-toned gelatin silver, cyanotype, and gold-toned printing-out paper prints. Arranged by geographic region, the exhibition includes a selection of Curtis's most compelling and rare photographs that look beyond the documentary nature of his work to focus on his aesthetic and technical contributions to the art of photography. Accompanying the exhibition is a 184-page catalogue available for purchase at the Museum Store.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum presents Curtis photographs of California Indian tribes on loan from the collections of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, along with a selection of Native American objects from Palm Springs Art Museum's permanent collection.

Edward S. Curtis: One Hundred Masterworks has been organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis/New York City/Paris/Lausanne, in collaboration with Palm Springs Art Museum. 

Also on view beginning on February 20 is Changing the Tone: Contemporary American Indian Photographers. This exhibition, which features works by artists of Native American heritage including Gerald Clarke, Will Wilson, Kent Monkman, Nicholas Galanin, Shelley Niro, and Lewis de Soto, provides a contemporary context for Curtis's historical photographs. In images that reflect on portraiture, cultural heritage, and their relationship to the land, these artists offer diverse perspectives on Native American identity as well as on critical issues around photography as a documentary medium, i.e., the extent to which it is fact, fiction, or some combination of both. This exhibition is organized by the Palm Springs Art Museum and is funded in part by Dr. Roswitha Kima Smale and John Renner.