Research Project Frank Matsura

Frank Matsura

http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/xmatsura.html Matsura was a member of the community he photographed in and was well liked by many. He photographed many things besides Native Americans. His images of Native Americans did include all the modernism of the day. Matsura had good rapport with the Indians of the region and frequently traveled to the Colville reservation to photograph the people and the landscape. At his death at age 32, Native Americans were amongst the group of 300. http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5357

While Rayna Green, a Cherokee, wants to believe the images of Curtis are real, and admits that almost every American Indian she knows has had a Curtis photo on their wall, she chooses to enjoy the photography of Frank Matsura http://gradschool.unc.edu/natam/panels/keynote.html She states:

This magic box has been a real problem, as a tool of art, because we all thought it saw reality, the “truth.” It has gotten between us and the truth about us, that's for sure. It's good somehow for this “little Japanese” photographer to have gotten through the muck to see the possibilities. We don't have to make up his story; it is there in his vision.

These rosebuds on the fainting couch in Frank Matsura's photograph remind us that Indian survival was much more complex and diverse than most pictures of it would have us imagine.