Band of Sioux Moving Camp
1837-1839
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Accession Number
1985.66.482
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin described this scene as “five or six hundred wigwams, with all their furniture . . . creeping over the grass-covered plains of this country; and three times that number of men, on good horses, strolling along in front or on the flank . . . and every cur [dog] . . . who is large enough, and not too cunning to be enslaved, is encumbered with a car or a sled . . . on which he patiently drags his load.” Catlin was less well-adjusted to traveling than these people embarked on their seas...
About the Artist
George Catlin · 1796–1872
George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...