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
1985.66.386,592S
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Joc-o-sot, the Walking Bear** is a striking full-length print by George Catlin, the pioneering 19th-century American artist renowned for his vivid documentation of Native American life. Captured in an unknown date from the Graphic Arts-Print medium, this work portrays Joc-o-sot—likely a prominent figure from an Indigenous tribe, whose name translates evocatively as "Walking Bear." Housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection, it exemplifies Catlin's mission to preserve vanishing cultures through art, as he traveled extensively among tribes in the 1830s, sketching and painting o...
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 ...