George CatlinAmerican, 1796–1872Nót-to-way, a Chief
Can I see it?
Unknown
Where is “Nót-to-way, a Chief” now? Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Unknown.
Washington, D.C., United States
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
“Of this tribe I have painted but one . . . This was an excellent man, and was handsomely dressed for his picture . . . He seemed to be quite ignorant of the early history of his tribe, as well as of the position and condition of its few scattered remnants, who are yet in existence . . . though he was an Iroquois, which he was proud to acknowledge to me . . . he wished it to be generally thought, that he was a Chippeway.” George Catlin’s notes imply that Nót-to-way was living with the Ojibwe, which would suggest that this portrait was painted either at Fort Snelling in 1835 or near Sault Ste. Marie in 1836. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 47, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Details
- Accession number
- 1985.66.196
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
In the life of George Catlin
The whole life1830–1836
Five journeys into the American West
St. Louis was his base for the five trips and the steamer Yellowstone of the American Fur Company his first transport; he visited 48 tribes in all (other accounts say about fifty). On trips along the Arkansas, Red and Mississippi rivers, in Florida and around the Great Lakes he painted more than 500 pictures and gathered a substantial collection of artifacts.
spring 1834
Fort Gibson: portraits of Cherokee, Choctaw, Osage
Leaving New Orleans for Fort Gibson in Indian Territory, he paints portraits of Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Osage and other Native Americans.
19 June 1834
With the dragoons onto the Southern Plains
He sets out onto the Southern Plains with a dragoon detachment led by Henry Leavenworth and Henry Dodge, and visits Comanche and Wichita lands.
1836
First exhibition: about 500 works
Catlin’s first exhibition takes place in the United States, with about 500 works, but it makes little public stir.
1838
The Indian Gallery and public lectures
Back in the East, he gathers his paintings and Native artifacts into his own Indian Gallery and begins giving lectures on life among the Indians, touring Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and New York with the show. The paintings hang salon-style, in rows one above another, and visitors identify them by catalogue numbers.
May 1838
Congress declines to buy the Indian Gallery
The U.S. Congress rebuffs his offer to sell the collection: Catlin wanted his life’s work kept intact, but his later efforts to persuade officials in Washington failed as well.
