biography of George CATLIN (1796-1872)

Birth place: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Death place: Jersey City, NJ

Profession: Painter

Studied: self-taught

Exhibited: PAFA; NAD; Chartres, 1835; Stuyvesant Inst., NY, 1837; Washington, DC, ca.1838; Philadelphia, ca.1838; Boston, ca.1838; Egyptian Hall, London, 1839; London, ca.1840-1844; Louvre, Paris, ca.1845; Paris Salon, 1846

Member: PAFA, 1824; NA, 1826; American Academy of Fine Arts, NYC

Work: Am. Mus. Natural History, NYC; Chicago Natural Hist. Mus.; NMAA; NGA; NYHS; Gilcrease Inst., Tulsa, OK; US National Mus.; Virginia Hist. Soc. (Constitutional Convention, 1829); Newberry Lib., Chicago; UPenn

Comments: One of the earliest and best known painters of Native Americans. Catlin's mother had been captured by Indians at the age of 8, so he was likely influenced by family stories and frontier guests as a child. Catlin studied and briefly practiced law, but from about 1820-25 he began painting miniatures and portraits in Philadelphia. He was active in New York State from 1825-29 before moving to Richmond, VA. In 1830 he made his first visit to the West and began his life"s major opus, the documentation of the Native Americans and their customs. Over the next eight years of travel throughout the American west, Catlin painted over 500 works. In 1839, he took his "Indian Gallery" (paintings and artifacts) to Europe, and toured until 1852, when he lost the collection to creditors. He then spent several years in South America (1852-57) and in the western U.S. and Alaska. Most of the time, however, he toured Europe and published his books and portfolios which contained hand-colored lithographs. After 1852 he copied his earlier paintings and added new ones of South American Indians. He returned to America in 1870. Unfortunately, many of his paintings were destroyed (along with C.B. King"s works) in the disastrous Smithsonian fire of 1865. His published works included Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indian", which came out in 20 editions from 1841 to 1860; "North American Indians Portfolio of Hunting Scenes and Amusements," 1844; and , "North American Indian Collection," 1848.

Sources: G&W; Haberly, Pursuit of the Horizon: A Life of George Catlin, Painter and Recorder of the American Indian (N.Y., 1948); Catlin, Letters and Notes; DAB; Phila. CD 1823-25; Richmond Portraits, 241; Vail, "The Last Meeting of the Giants"; New Orleans Bee, March 24, 1835, and Courier, April 2, 1835 (cited by Delgado-WPA); Rutledge, Artists in the Life of Charleston, 188; Rutledge, PA; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; Thomas, "George Catlin, Portrait Painter," repros.; De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri, repros.; Colden, Memoir; Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 70-71; Ness & Orwig, Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years, 44; P & H Samuels, 86-87; Wright, Artists in Virgina Before 1900; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 328."