In Search of Wild Indians: Photographs and Life Works by Carl and Grace Moon, by Tom Driebe, Maurose Publishing Co., Moscow, Pa., 1997, $85.
Ohio-born Carl Moon (18791948) became interested in American Indians as a boy when he read James Fenimore Cooper and was determined to go West. “When I was twenty-three,” he wrote, “I did just as I said I would do, but instead of hunting Indians with a gun and bowie knife, as the storybook heroes always did, I was to hunt my Indians with a camera, paintbrushes and a writing pad.” He moved to Albuquerque in 1903 and soon made a name for himself in the Southwest and beyond. Following in the footsteps of such great 19th-century photographers as Edward S. Curtis and William Henry Jackson, Carl (he sometimes spelled it Karl) Moon was determined to show the world his vision of these “great people” who he felt would soon vanish. Moon was a photographer and art director for the Fred Harvey Company, and his photos were used in brochures to promote tourism in the Southwest. In 1911, he married Grace Purdie, a writer and poet, and they began collaborating on books. In Search of Wild Indians is pricey, but is a delight to look at. There are 440 pages, 230 color illustrations and 200 black-and-white photos. Along with the gallery of photos and paintings, the story of the Moons is told well with the help of plenty of letters and excerpts from newspapers and magazines. Moon has been called “the imitator of Curtis,” and author Tom Driebe says there is truth in that label, but Driebe also says, “Perhaps if his travels had led him West ten years earlier, he may have been considered the greatest Indian photographer of all time.”
