White Wolves Attacking Old Buffalo--no. 10
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
1985.66.386,590I
Tags
Art Historical Context
George Catlin, a pioneering 19th-century American artist, captured the raw drama of the American West through his vivid depictions of Native American life and wildlife. Best known for his extensive travels among Plains tribes in the 183s, Catlin created thousands of works to document a vanishing frontier before westward expansion transformed it forever. *White Wolves Attacking Old Buffalo--. 10*, a graphic arts print from the Smithsonian American Museum's collection, exemplifies his fascination with the perilous natural world of the Great Plains, where predators and prey clashed in epic strugg...
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 ...