Joc-o-sot, the Walking Bear
Medium
Graphic Arts-Print
Classification
Graphic Arts-Print
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Museum of Natural History, Department of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
1985.66.386,592M
Tags
Art Historical Context
George Catlin's *Joc-o-sot, the Walking Bear* captures the dignified presence of a Native American figure in a striking full-length portrait. Created as a graphic arts print—likely a lithograph derived from Catlin's oil paintings—this undated work hails from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection, transferred from the National Museum of Natural History's ethnology department. Catlin, a pioneering 19th-century American artist, immersed himself in Native American communities during the 1830s, painting hundreds of portraits to document their vanishing cultures amid rapid U.S. expansion....
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 ...