Description
This print depicts hunters traveling in the Upper Missouri region, stealthily approach a herd of buffalo under the cover of a ravine or bank to get close enough to shoot, using rifles. The beautiful composition includes the unspoiled surrounding landscape. As with other Catlin works, it was part of his effort to document the “vanishing” traditions that had been established by the Plains Native Americans and their symbiotic relationship with the buffalo. The original text by Catlin described it s follows:
“This plate represents the familiar mode of procuring meat, practiced by all the voyageurs on the Missouri and other streams of that country, who run their canoes ashore where the buffaloes or other animals are discovered grazing on the banks, and cautiously stealing up under cover of a bank or other protection, shoot down the fattest of the herd. The landscape view here given is strictly a portrait, and well illustrates much of the peculiar scenery on the banks of the Upper Missouri.”
The following biography of Catlin appears on the website of the Smithsonian Museum, which holds a major collection of his original works:
A self-taught artist, George Catlin is best remembered for his extensive travels across the American West, recording the lives of Native Americans in a collection of images the artist called his Indian Gallery. Early in his career, Catlin practiced law in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, having passed the bar exam in 1818. He abandoned his practice in 1821 to pursue painting. Catlin enjoyed modest success painting portraits and miniatures, but found both inadequate to his ambition of becoming a history painter. In 1828, after seeing a delegation of western Indians in the east, he had found a subject, as he later wrote, “on which to devote a whole life-time of enthusiasm.” Catlin traveled the frontier from 1830 to 1836, visiting fifty tribes west of the Mississippi, from present-day North Dakota to Oklahoma, and creating an astonishing visual record of Native American life. Catlin’s Indian Gallery was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1879 …. Several hundred of Catlin’s Indian portraits now hang in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
In addition to producing original paintings, Catlin self-published a set of 25 hand-colored lithographs in London in 1844, in his North American Indian Portfolio. The preface stated: “The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian.” Although Catlin planned on producing a series of additional prints from his Indian Gallery paintings, the initial portfolio proved too great an expense, so it was the only he published. Nonetheless, a so-called pirated, albeit much sought-after high-quality version of this work was published in New York in 1845, with the prints relithographed, under the direction of British publisher Rudloph Ackermann.
Condition: Generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidified, with light remaining toning, handling, wear, soft creases. Minor faded toning mark in margins, can be rematted out.
References:
Catlin, George Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indian, London: Geo. Catlin, 1841.
Howes, Wright. U.S.-Iana (1650-1950). R.R. Bowker, 1978. C243.
Reese, “The Production of Catlin’s North American Indian Portfolio, 1844-1876,” unpublished
Sabin, Joseph, Wilberforce Eames and R.W.G. Vail. Dictionary of Books Relating to America: From Its Discovery to the Present Time, Volumes I and II. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino, 1998 (reprint of 1868 ed.). 11532.
Wagner, Henry R., and Charles L. Camp. The Plains and the Rockies: A Bibliography of Original Narratives of Travel and Adventure, 1800-1865. 4th ed., University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Entry 105a:3.
