George Catlin - Life and works, Family, Fiction

Artist and writer, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied law, but soon turned to drawing and painting. During 1832–40 he was studying the Indians of the Far West, painting portraits and pictures, illustrative of life and manners, which are now in the National Museum at Washington. He spent eight years in Europe with a Far West show, travelled (1852–7) in South and Central America, and again lived in Europe until 1871.

George Catlin (July 26, 1796–December 23, 1872) was an American painter who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.

Life and works

Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the fifth of 14 children.

Catlin formed some of the earliest Wild West Shows in order to highlight the plight of the Native Americans and show their culture. He travelled the United States east coast and Europe with his shows, showing his paintings, the so-called Catlin Cartoon Collection. After the bankruptcy, Catlin travelled widely in the American West and in South America.

His works are the only known portrayals of some western tribes, including the bulk of those of the Mandan tribe, which he believed was descended from the Welsh.

Family

Many historians and descendants believe George Catlin had two families; his proper family on the east coast of the United States, but also a family farther west, started with a Native American woman.

Two other master artists of the Old West related to George Catlin by family bloodlines are Frederic Remington and Earl W.

Fiction

Larry McMurtry includes Catlin as a character in his The Berrybender Narratives series of novels.