1. George Catlin was an American lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the American frontier.
26 Facts About George Catlin
1. 2.
George Catlin was admitted to the Bar in 1819 and practiced law for two years before giving it up to travel and study art.
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George Catlin began his journey in 1830 when he accompanied Governor William Clark on a diplomatic mission up the Mississippi River into Native American territory.
4.
George Catlin visited eighteen tribes, including the Pawnee, Omaha, and Ponca in the south and the Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine, and Blackfeet to the north.
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When George Catlin returned east in 1838, he assembled the paintings and numerous artifacts into his Indian Gallery, and began delivering public lectures that drew on his personal recollections of life among the American Indians.
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George Catlin traveled with his Indian Gallery to major cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and New York City.
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George Catlin hung his paintings salon style, side by side and one above another.
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The touring Indian Gallery did not attract the paying public George Catlin needed to stay financially sound, and the United States Congress rejected his initial petition to purchase the works.
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In 1839, George Catlin took his collection across the Atlantic for a tour of European capitals.
10.
George Catlin wanted to sell his Indian Gallery to the US government to have his life's work preserved intact.
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George Catlin's continued attempts to persuade various officials in Washington, DC to buy the collection failed.
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George Catlin spent the last 20 years of his life trying to re-create his collection, and recreated more than 400 paintings.
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In 1841, George Catlin published Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, in two volumes, with approximately 300 engravings.
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In 1872, George Catlin traveled to Washington, DC at the invitation of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian.
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Until his death later that year in Jersey City, New Jersey, George Catlin worked in a studio at the Smithsonian Institution's "Castle".
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The associated George Catlin artifacts are in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian.
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Some artifacts from George Catlin are in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology collections.
18.
The accuracy of some of George Catlin's observations has been questioned.
19.
George Catlin claimed to be the first white man to see the Minnesota pipestone quarries, and pipestone was named catlinite.
20.
George Catlin is remembered for his research and writing on mouth breathing, inspired by observations made during his travels.
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George Catlin repeatedly heard that this was because they believed that mouth breathing made an individual weak and caused disease, while nasal breathing made the body strong and prevented disease.
22.
George Catlin observed that mothers repeatedly closed the mouth of their infants while they were sleeping, in order to instill nasal breathing as a habit.
23.
George Catlin met Clara Bartlett Gregory in 1828 in her hometown of Albany, New York.
24.
George Catlin was eager to escape her family home, not getting along with her father's third wife.
25.
George Catlin died on December 23,1872, aged 76 years in Jersey City, New Jersey.
26.
George Catlin's 1834 painting Comanche Feats of Horsemanship was featured in the second episode of the HBO drama series Watchmen, "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship", which was named for the painting.