Wife of Two Crows

About this artwork

“I have visited forty-eight different tribes, the greater part of which I found speaking different languages, and containing in all 400,000 souls. I have brought home safe, and in good order, 310 portraits in oil, all painted in their native dress, and in their own wigwams . . . as well as a very extensive and curious collection of their costumes, and all their other manufactures, from the size of a wigwam down to the size of a quill or a rattle.” George Catlin painted Wife of Two Crows at a...

Art Historical Context

In 1832, George Catlin, a pioneering American artist and ethnographer, painted *Wife of Two Crows* during his travels among the Hidatsa people at their village along the Upper Missouri River. Catlin dedicated his career to documenting Native American life before it was forever altered by westward expansion. As he proudly noted in his *Letters and Notes* (1841), he visited 48 tribes, painted 310 oil portraits of individuals in their native dress and wigwams, and amassed a vast collection of artifacts—from full-sized tipis to intricate quills and rattles. This bust-length portrait captures the ...

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 ...