Joc-o-sot, the Walking Bear
n.d.
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
1985.66.386,592AAA
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Joc-o-sot, the Walking Bear** is a striking full-length portrait print by George Catlin, pioneering 19th-century American renowned for his documentation of Native American life Captured in graphic arts medium (likely a lithograph reproducing one of Catlin's oil paintings), this undated work from the Smithsonian American Art Museum a dignified Indigenous figure, evoking the strength and grace implied by his evocative name. Catlin traveled extensively among Plains tribes in the 1830s, creating an invaluable visual record of Native cultures on the brink of profound change due to westward expan...
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 ...