A Rare Souvenir Of George Catlin
George Catlin (1796 -- 1872) created a precious legacy of portraits of American Indians and of their environs. In 1841, after the major portion of his life work of portraying Indians was already behind him, Catlin wrote: "[T]he history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the life-time of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and becoming their historian."
Born in Pennsylvania and trained as a lawyer, Catlin determined in 1821 to become a painter. In the latter part of the 1820's Catlin decided to devote his artistic career to painting Indians in the western territories. From 1830 -- 1838, Catlin traveled in the West, visited over 50 tribes and produced over 500 paintings. He titled his paintings collectively as his "Indian gallery" but the gallery met with little interest in the United States. In the 1840s Catlin displayed his Indian Gallery several times in England and Paris where it was well received. Unfortunately, he later had to sell the gallery to pay debts. Ultimately, the Smithsonian Institution acquired Catlin's Indian Gallery but, for much of the 20th Century, it remained largely unexhibited. In 2003, the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. mounted a major exhibition of Catlin's Indian gallery. It remains on view in the Renwick's large salon room, much as Catlin had hoped to exhibit it. It is an impressive exhibit for those visiting the nation's capitol. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to see the Indian gallery several times and to have had a guided tour of the gallery with a docent.
In 1849, while exhibiting his Indian gallery in London, Catlin prepared a large illustrated manuscript based upon his gallery. The manuscript consists of 50 plates, 26 of which are portraits of Indians while the remaining 24 are scenes of other western subjects, primarily hunting scenes or other portrayals of animals. Catlin put the plates on the right-hand pages of his book. On the left-hand page, Catlin described and annotated the painting in his own handwriting. Catlin titled the work the "Souvenir of the North American Indians." In the Fronticepiece to the collection, Catlin wrote, again in his own hand:
"Having been fully convinced of the certain extinction of the Amn. Native Races, I resolved, at an early period of my life, to procure and preserve for future ages, a pictorial history of them, as far as my personal labours and individual means would enable me to do. With this view, I penetrated the most remote solitudes and wilds of the Amn. Continent & visited, with the most perfect success, more than 50 tribes, mostly speaking different languages, and made numerous collections of paintings from Nature, from which collection the following drawings have all been copied by my own hand."
In 1852, a British collector purchased the Souvenir from Catlin. In 1947, Oklahoma oilman and member of the Muscogee-Creek Tribe Thomas Gilcrease purchased the Souvenir, and the volume is now owned by the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa Oklahoma. In 2003, the Gilcrease Museum published this rare volume, which is a full-size facsimile of Catlin's original Souvenir. Each of Catlin's 50 plates and adjoining commentaries are beautifully reproduced. The volume includes an extensive scholarly introduction by William Truettner, followed by a chronology of Catlin's life and a transcription of Catlin's handwritten notes on the plates.
When he prepared the Souvenir, Catlin generally combined three of his original portraits into a single plate. He was a more technically proficient painter than he had been in the 1830s, but the portraits in the Souvenir are smaller, less spontaneous, and less forceful than Catlin's originals. The paintings of the buffalo, antelope, wolves, of the chase, the hunt, and the kill, however, are outstanding and outstrip their originals.
This book is large, bulky and expensive. Again I have the good fortune to have access to a library which has recently acquired the Souvenir as a gift. Thus, I have been able to read and enjoy it. A uniquely American combination of artist, historian, showman, and huckster, Catlin left a body of art to be remembered. In writing this review, I hope to bring the Souvenir to the attention of readers who might not otherwise know about it and to encourage these readers to explore Catlin's works in ways that probably are more accessible to them.
Robin Friedman
