Ta-wa-que-nah, or the Rocky Mountain, Near the Comanche Village
1834-1835
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Accession Number
1985.66.352
Tags
About this artwork
“Our Camanchee guides . . . pointed to their village at several miles distance, in the midst of one of the most enchanting valleys that human eyes ever looked upon . . . with a magnificent range of mountains rising in distance beyond . . . composed entirely of a reddish granite of gneiss.” This painting is the most topographically accurate landscape of the Southern Great Plains series, and has a composition that is reminiscent of early Hudson River school paintings. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, v...
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 ...