The Tower, 1100 Miles above St. Louis
1832
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
1985.66.378
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin described this scene as âa high and remarkable clay bluff, rising to the height of some hundreds of feet from the water, and having in distance, the castellated appearance of a fortification.â He painted this image in 1832 while on a lengthy voyage northwest on the Missouri River. Every bluff on the Upper Missouri reminded Catlin, a true student of the picturesque, of a castle, turret, or tower. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 32, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natu...
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 ...