Floyd's Grave, Where Lewis and Clark Buried Sergeant Floyd in 1804

About this artwork

George Catlin’s view of a bluff some twelve hundred miles above St. Louis captures the vast scale of a continent that, in the 1830s, was only beginning to be settled by white Americans. The artist swept bright green paint across the foreground to suggest the brilliant glow of spring, and spotted the hillside with tiny figures that lead the eye upward. The thinly painted line at the top of the bluff is the cedar post marking the grave of Sergeant Floyd, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition....

Art Historical Context

In 1832, George Catlin, the pioneering American artist renowned for his vivid depictions of the untamed West and Native American, painted *Floyd's Grave, Lewis and Clark Buried Floyd in 1804*. This oil painting commemorates the burial site of Sergeant Charles Floyd the only member of the Lewis and Expedition to die during their epic 1804 journey up the Missouri River. Located on a bluff some 1,200 miles above St Louis, the spot marked a poignant moment in early American exploration, as Floyd succumbed to illness and was interred under a cedar post—still faintly visible as a thin line atop the ...

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 ...