Search

Showcases the work of the early-nineteenth-century artist who made four trips into Native American country as part of an ambition to paint each tribe, noting the influence of period belief systems on his work as well as his passionate affection for his subjects.

George Catlin painted pictures of Indian tribes during the early 1800's.

George Catlin (1796-1872) was a Pennsylvania-born artist, writer and showman whose portraits of Native Americans are among the most important representation of indigenous peoples ever made.

An American artist's two-volume account, published in 1848, of exhibiting his collection of Native American paintings and artefacts in Europe.

Life Among the Indias was written as a result of a demand for a book of facts on the character and condition of the American Indians. George Catlin (1796-1872) was an American painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Travelling to the American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin was the first white man to depict Plains Indians in their native territory. Contents: The Indians of America My Adventure With the First Indian I Ever Saw How the Indians Build Their Wigwams Indian Warfare — Scalps and Scalping Medicine Men — "Drawing Fire From the Sun" How the Indians Paint Themselves — The Prairies Catching Wild Horses — A Buffalo Hunt An Adventure With Bears The Mandan Indians — The Chief's Tale The Sioux Indians — A Challenge! Pipe-stone Quarry — "The Thunder's Nest" — "Stone Man Medicine" A Ride to the Camanchees — A False Alarm A Solitary Bide on "Charley" Across the Prairies A Journey Down the Orinoco — The "Handsome Dance" En Route for the Amazon — The "Medicine Gun" Rio Trombutas — Adventures With a Tiger and a Rattlesnake Still en Route for the Amazon — An Adventure With Peccaries On the Amazon The Indians of the Amazon — Poisoned Arrows Red Indians in London Red Indians in Paris

According to the preface of this book, all of the letters written by George appear in their entirety because of his greater importance. Many letters by other Catlins have been omitted because they have little or no bearing on the artist's career. Most members of the family wrote well, but it is not the literary style of the epistles that gives the book its significance. The correspondence helps to fill in certain gaps in George's activities and to clarify or correct some previous statements about him. The general reader, whether interested in pioneer painters or not, will doubtless find that the letters reveal in an intriguing way the personal relationships of members of a good, forthright American family living in the middle years of the nineteenth century.