George Catlin was an artist born in Wilkes-Barre, in Pennsylvania. George was a lawyer by profession before his works of arts were recognized (John, 2011). His brief career as a lawyer was accompanied by the production of two paintings of American Indians, with sufficient interests and travels among the Native Americans in America (John, 2011). He was much concerned with the Native American’s race that was slowly vanishing and therefore he set to record their history through works of art.
Catlin had enormous contributions to the setting and preservation of the culture and way of living of Native Americans. He accompanied General William Clark in the year 1830 during a quest to Native American land for research and learning the culture of the tribe, which was deemed as going inexistent with time (Thompson, 2006).
George became interested in the history of the American Indians, and he spent most of his childhood collecting Indian facts (Thompson, 2006). This curiousness was sparked by the capture of his grandmother by one of the Native American tribes. In his lifetime, he explored the way of living of Native Americans which is essential for passage of information from one generation to another (John, 2011). He produced over 600 paintings which Charles Baudelaire noted to have covered all aspects of the American Indians, from heritage to culture to conquer.
Catlin works were appreciated after many years of ignorance of his works. Today, through his work, we learn to deal with ignorance and find out how the Native Americans lived and how they live today (Thompson, 2006). Even when he lost some of the paintings due to debt, he pushed on and created more paintings which he believed that the government of United States should treat his paintings as a national treasure. Though he never came to see his wish granted, the paintings came to Smithsonian only seven years after his death and had been an essential element to date for the study of Native Americans history.
References
Thompson, B. W. (January 01, 2006). Book Review: First Artist of the West, George Catlin Paintings and Watercolors, from the collections of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Central States Archaeological Journal, 42, 1, 46
John, (March 31, 2011). Cultural nationalism, westward expansion and the production of imperial landscape: George Catlin’ sNative American West. Ecumene, 8, 2, 175-203.
