Buffalo Chase in Winter, Indians on Snowshoes
1832-1833
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
1985.66.416
Tags
About this artwork
In the summer, plains bison led mounted pursuers on dangerous chases. Winter snows, however, made tracking buffalo safer and easier, slowing the animalâs escape and allowing Indian hunters on snowshoes to move easily over the ground. Catlin traveled in the West in the warmer months and never witnessed such a hunt, but he undoubtedly heard descriptions from both Indians and whites and may have seen the first known representation of it, by the Swiss-Canadian artist Peter Rindisbacher. Catlin pai...
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 ...