Indian Camp in the Forest
1854/1869
Medium
oil on card mounted on paperboard
Dimensions
overall: 47.5 x 62.8 cm (18 11/16 x 24 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Paul Mellon Collection
Accession Number
1965.16.289
Art Historical Context
George Catlin's *Indian Camp in the Forest* (1854/1869) captures a serene moment in Native American life, depicting a woodland encampment likely inspired by the artist's extensive travels among Indigenous peoples of the American West. Catlin, a pioneering 19th-century painter, dedicated much of his career to documenting tribes like the Sioux and Mandan before their cultures were profoundly altered by European-American expansion. This oil painting on card mounted on paperboard—measuring 18 11/16 x 24 3/4 inches—evokes the intimacy of a field study, rendered with Catlin's characteristic attentio...
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 ...