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Historical Artist - George Catlin (1796 - 1872)
George Catlin was an American painter and writer who specialized in depicting Native American
life. He initially was employed as a lawyer but switched to art in the 1820's when he worked as
a portraitist. In 1830, he began visiting Native American tribes. His paintings were better
received in Europe than in the United States. Regardless, they never were commercially
successful and Catlin went bankrupt in 1852. Catlin’s dream was to sell his Indian Gallery
to the U.S. government so that his life’s work would be preserved intact. His continued
attempts to persuade various officials in Washington, D.C. failed. He was forced to sell the
original Indian Gallery, now 607 paintings, due to personal debts in 1852. The nearly complete
surviving set of Catlin’s first Indian Gallery painted in the 1830s is now part of the
Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. Some 700 sketches are in the American Museum of
Natural History, New York City.
Contemporary American Artists
Art Galleries in United States of America
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