George Catlin
Who was George Catlin?
American painter (1796-1872)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on George Catlin (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American painter, lawyer, author, and traveler known for documenting Native American peoples and cultures in the early 1800s. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Catlin studied law at Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, one of the first law schools in the United States. He practiced law briefly before leaving it for painting, a choice that changed his life and career direction.
Catlin went to the American West five times in the 1830s, exploring areas few non-Native Americans had seen. On these trips, he painted portraits and scenes of the Plains Indians' daily life, ceremonies, and customs. This work led to his Indian Gallery, a collection of paintings, drawings, and artifacts. He also wrote detailed accounts of the people he met.
Before his famous western journeys, Catlin was involved in early American printmaking and publishing. His engravings along the Erie Canal in New York appeared in Cadwallader D. Colden's "Memoir," published in 1825, one of the first American books to use lithography. These included some of the first images of Buffalo, linking Catlin to American visual documentation during the canal era.
Catlin married Clara Bartlett Gregory, who joined him on some travels and supported his art. He later took his Indian Gallery to the United States and Europe, showing it in cities like London and Paris, where it drew a lot of attention. Despite his exhibitions' success, Catlin had financial struggles for much of his life. He tried to sell the collection to the U.S. government but faced many delays, although some of his work later became part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Catlin spent his last years painting and writing, focused on recording Native American cultures he felt were disappearing due to westward expansion. He died in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 23, 1872, leaving behind a large collection of visual and written records of Native American life.
Before Fame
George Catlin was born on July 26, 1796, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as the fifth of fourteen children. He grew up during a time when the United States was expanding westward, and Native American cultures were facing major changes. Catlin's father, Putnam Catlin, worked as a lawyer and farmer, and encouraged George to pursue a legal career. George attended Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, graduated, and briefly practiced law in Pennsylvania and New York in the early 1820s.
Catlin's interest in art was mostly self-taught, and he began painting portraits while still officially working as an attorney. A chance meeting with a group of Native Americans visiting Philadelphia around 1824 reportedly inspired him to focus on documenting Indigenous peoples. He completely left his law career to paint, starting with portraits of notable Americans and early engravings for published works before turning his attention to the American West.
Key Achievements
- Created one of the largest and most detailed visual records of Native American life in the nineteenth century, comprising over 600 paintings
- Contributed engravings to one of the earliest American books produced using lithographic printing, published in 1825
- Authored influential written accounts of Plains Indian cultures, including 'Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians' (1841)
- Toured his Indian Gallery internationally, exhibiting in London and Paris and bringing widespread European attention to Native American cultures
- His collection was eventually preserved at the Smithsonian Institution, securing long-term public access to his documentation of Indigenous peoples
Did You Know?
- 01.Catlin's engravings appeared in one of the first American books to use lithography, Cadwallader D. Colden's Memoir published in 1825, which also contained early printed images of the city of Buffalo.
- 02.His Indian Gallery eventually comprised more than 600 paintings and thousands of artifacts collected during five separate journeys into the American West during the 1830s.
- 03.Catlin exhibited his Indian Gallery in London and Paris during the 1840s, once bringing a group of Ojibwe people to perform before European audiences, including a meeting with King Louis Philippe of France.
- 04.Despite repeated appeals, Catlin failed during his lifetime to persuade the United States Congress to purchase his Indian Gallery as a national collection, a campaign he pursued for decades.
- 05.Catlin trained as a lawyer at Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, one of the first formal law schools in the United States, before abandoning the legal profession for painting.