George CatlinAmerican, 1796–1872Prairie Meadows Burning
May one see it?
Unknown
Smithsonian American Art Museum
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
George Catlin painted ominous, swirling clouds of black smoke that loom out of the distance and drive the Indians before them. The artist was an eyewitness to such terrifying events, and described the fire’s “thunder rumbling as it goes.” But he also wrote that prairie fires made for “some of the most beautiful scenes that are to be witnessed in this country, and also some of the most sublime.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 33, 1841; reprint 1973)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1985.66.374
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0
Meanwhile, in the life of George Catlin
The whole life1830
First journey west with Governor Clark
He accompanies William Clark, governor of the Missouri Territory, on a diplomatic mission to Fort Crawford and then up the Mississippi into Native territory.
1830–1836
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.
1832
Up the Missouri to Fort Union
He ascends the Missouri more than 3,000 km to the Fort Union trading post (today on the North Dakota–Montana border) and spends several weeks among peoples little touched by European culture. Visiting eighteen tribes, among them the Pawnee, Omaha, Ponca, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine and Blackfeet, he paints the most vivid portraits of his career.
March 1833
Prince Maximilian’s expedition sees his work
At Major O’Fallon’s country estate near St. Louis, members of Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied’s scientific and ethnographic expedition look over the works from Catlin’s first Missouri expedition, among them the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who later painted many Native American portraits and scenes of his own.
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.
