George Catlin was born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1796, where he grew up fascinated by stories of the Native Americans. Catlin studied law, and was a practicing attorney for several years, before quitting to pursue painting. Catlin was a self-taught painter before entering the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the National Academy of Design in 1823. Still fascinated by the American West, Catlin arrived in St. Louis in 1830 with the intention of making extended painting expeditions. Catlin spent the next eight years traveling among dozens of tribes of the American West. He is remembered as the first artist of note to record the Plains Indians, and his was the first finely painted record of tribes west of the Mississippi. For more information on George Catlin and other artists we represent, please visit the artist index on our gallery website |