Goerge Catlin
George Catlin was born in 1796-1872. He was the first and perhaps the most famous painter of North American Native-Americans. Catlin was one of few Americans to accept Native American culture on its own terms rather than on European terms. Both Catlin’s mother and grandmother had been kidnapped by Native Americans. Catlin began as a lawyer, but turned to portrait painting as his first love. However when he encountered a group of Far West Native American braves, he resolved to paint and study Native American culture. So he began an epic journey through the Midwest and the west from 1829 to 1838, traveling across the frontier and living among some 48 separate tribes while he painted their portraits, over six hundred, in fact. He published plates of these paintings along with a fairly thorough documentation of what he encountered in 1842 in Notes and Letters on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. Agreeing to his father’s wishes, he decided to study law in Litchfield, Connecticut, but at the same time established a more fine arts career, as a painter of portrait miniatures. After passing the bar exam in Connecticut, Catlin returned home to Pennsylvania, where he practiced law with his olde
In January, 1838, Catlin received a government commission to paint the Seminole leader, Osceola and four other chiefs. Osceola died shortly after posing for the artist, who then refused to deliver the pictures to Washington, realizing that his portrait of the martyred Seminole now would be worth far more than the government initially had been willing to pay. He then set sail for England in November, 1839, accompanied with the Indian gallery. He would not return home for thirty years. From 1830-1836, he recorded the lives and exotic customs of his subjects than on following the philosophy of beauty and the Fine Arts. Because he was forced to work rapidly, he generally would detail the face more than the rest of the body, and outline in earth tones, and adding only the colorful costumes. He spent the winter of 1836-1837 in upstate New York, organizing a museum. It went on view in Albany and Troy, New York, in the spring and summer, before opening in New York City on September 25th, 1837. By 1821 the young artist had moved to Philadelphia, where he exhibited some early work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Catlin remained in the city for approximately four years and took some formal art study during this period, but little information exists regarding his early training. He certainly knew the work of the Philadelphia portraist Thomas Sully, and he became close friends with Sully’s future son-in-law, John Neagle, a fellow artist at the Academy. In addition to painting portrait miniatures in Philadelphia, Catlin received several out-of- town approval
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