White Sand Bluffs, on Santa Rosa Island, Near Pensacola
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
1985.66.354
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin painted this scene in the winter of 1834-35, during his visit to Florida. “This sketch,” he later wrote, “was made on Santa Rosa Island, within a few miles of Pensacola . . . The hills of sand are as purely white as snow, and fifty or sixty feet in height, and supporting on their tops, and in their sides, clusters of magnolia bushes---of myrtle---of palmetto and heather, all of which are evergreens, forming the most vivid contrast with the snow-white sand in which they are growing....
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 ...