Wah-pe-kée-suck, White Cloud (called the Prophet), Adviser to Black Hawk

About this artwork

“Wah-pe-kee-suck (the white cloud), called ‘the Prophet,’ is a very distinguished man, and one of the principal and leading men of the Black Hawk party, and studying favour with the whites, as will be seen by the manner in which he was allowing his hair to grow out.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 56, 1841; reprint 1973)

Art Historical Context

In 1832, American artist George Catlin captured the dignified likeness of Wah-pe-kéé-suck, known as "White Cloud" "the Prophet," a key adviser to Sauk leader Black Hawk. oil painting, now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum is part of Catlin's ambitious project to document Native American tribes through hundreds of portraits before their cultures were irrevocably altered by westward expansion. Catlin, a pioneer of ethnographic art, painted during a pivotal moment amid the Black Hawk War, when Sauk and Fox peoples resisted U.S. encroachment on their Illinois homelands. Catlin's own words fr...

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 ...