Govinda Gallery

This past Monday, The New York Times published a front-page story discussing recent research on the trees in the Columbian Amazon and the local researchers who climb up the trees in order to measure how much carbon dioxide is stored in them. The story talks about the recent scientific push to study the incredible trees of the Amazon in order to gather more data to strengthen environmentalist efforts against pollution and deforestation. This is only one of many examples of the recent budding interest in the Amazon forest and its importance to the study of biodiversity, climate change, Amazonian cultural traditions, and the use of hallucinogenic plants.

Richard Evans Schultes, a celebrated ethnobotanist and Amazonian plant explorer, was a leader in this field of research on the Amazon, taking an anthropological approach to the study of Amazonian plants and the ways in which they were used in Indigenous ritual practices and traditions. By partaking in their ceremonies and showing a deep respect for their culture, Schultes was able to build a rapport with the indigenous communities which then allowed him to capture significant photographs of their ways of life. Schultes’ photographs of his travels to the Amazon in the 1940s and 50s captured plants, landscapes, indigenous people, and Amazonian cultural practices that had never been seen before by Western scientists. Schultes was able to gain an incredible insight into a sacred life that would have otherwise remained hidden from the rest of the world. With these photographs and extensive research, Schultes advocated for the rights of indigenous people and their land, and documented the history and lives of a rapidly disappearing culture.

Portrait of Richard Evans Schultes at Savana of Yapobodá, Rîo Kuduyari, Vaupés, 1946. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

In 2006, Govinda Gallery had the incredible honor of hosting the first ever exhibition of Richard Evans Schultes’ photographs of his journeys to the Amazon to celebrate the launch of the book The Lost Amazon: The Pioneering Expeditions of Richard Evans Schultes (Chronicle Books/Insight Editions, 2005), co-authored by Govinda Gallery Director, Chris Murray and Wade Davis. Two years later, Chris Murray curated and organized with Wade Davis an extraordinary exhibition of these photographs at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. In his afterword for The Lost Amazon, Murray explains the significance of Schultes’ photographs, stating that, “[Richard Evans Schultes’s] field expeditions brought him places no one with a camera had gone before, into the path of medicine men, ceremonial practices, ornate masks, shamans and their dances, sacred waterfalls and rivers, austere mountains, stone engravings, and of course, exotic plants. Schultes’s powers of observation were highly tuned and served him well as both photographer and scientist. In this medium, he passed along his observations to us, revealing much with his particular photographer’s eye.”

The Rock of Nye, Río Piraparaná. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

More recently, the Museé du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, France exhibited some of Richard Evans Schultes’ photographs in their show, “Shamanic Visions: Ayahuasca Arts in the Peruvian Amazon,” which ran from November 2023 through May 2024. This show explored the use of hallucinogens such as ayahuasca in many indigenous societies and the importance of them in social life and their impact on artistic creation.

Museé du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, France.

Makuna Shaman Lighting the Torch that Heralds the Beginning of the Yagé (Ayahuasca) Ceremony, Río Popeyacá, 1952. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

The current issue of Black & White Magazine features Schultes’ photographs. Rather than focusing on the topics depicted in the photographs, the main focus of the article is on the incredible photographic quality of Schultes’ work and his intuitive understanding of photography as a medium despite not being trained as a photographer. “His photographs record not just scientific information, but the passion a photographer taps into during a truly compelling experience” (Black & White Magazine, October 2024 Issue, page 68).

The entry falls at Jirijirimo, Río Apaporis, September 1943. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

Cubeo mother bathing child at Soratama, Río Apaporis. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

Opening tomorrow at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, UK is yet another exhibition on the impact and use of hallucinogens in Western Amazonian social life titled “Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon.” This exhibition will run for six months as part of a bigger exhibit entitled “Why Do We Take Drugs?” on the different forms of drug use across different cultures. This exhibition also features an extraordinary selection of Richard Evans Schultes’ photographs showcasing the ritual consumption of hallucinogenic plants, along with some of the artistic output that came from such ritual consumption such as ceramics, textiles, paintings, and sculptures, and it will even include a guided virtual ayahuasca ‘trip’ using virtual reality technology.

Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom.

Kamsá Youth with the Blossom of Culebra Borrachera, Sibundoy, June 1953. Photo by Richard Evans Schultes.

The recent interest in the Amazon and Schultes’ work is a testament to his remarkable legacy in the study of indigenous Amazonian cultures and their use of exotic plants, and the importance of the preservation of such cultures and environments.

Estate Prints of Richard Evans Schultes photographs are available through Govinda Gallery.