Wife of The Six
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
1985.66.195
Tags
About this artwork
This woman was “Not the most agreeable” of the Six's several wives, according to George Catlin. The artist made few compromises in representing the blunt, heavy features and powerful contours of this woman's head. Such studies among the more civilized eastern tribes, whom he painted three or four years later, are rare. Catlin executed this work at Fort Union in the upper Midwest in 1832. (Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)
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 ...