490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1955 



Charleston, S. C, to obtain portraits of Osceola (pi. 6) and those other 

 Seminole and Yuchi Indian prisoners held at Fort Moultrie. 



INTERPRETING INDIANS TO THE PUBLIC 



George Catlin made a virtual second career of interpreting his 

 art to the public. He began exhibiting his Indian paintings in Pitts- 

 burgh in 1833 and thereafter showed them in other midwestern river 

 towns. It was not until after he enlarged the collection through his 

 field trips of 1834 to the Southern Plains and of 1835-36 to the Upper 

 Mississippi that he was ready to present his Indians on canvas to the 

 critical eyes of New Yorkers. Catlin's Indian Gallery opened at 

 Clinton Hall late in 1837. It was such a hit with sophisticated New 

 Yorkers that the artist had to move his vast one-man show to Stuy- 

 vesant Institute on Broadway. Later he exhibited it in Washington, 

 Philadelphia, and Boston to large and appreciative crowds. 



At Faneuil Hall in Boston the English phi-enologist George Combe 

 saw Catlin's Indian Gallery. It was one of the sights really worth 

 remembering on his visit to this country. He said of it — 



The pictures, as works of art, are deficient in drawing, perspective, and finish ; 

 but they convey a vivid impression of the objects, and impress the mind of the 

 spectator with a conviction of their fidelity to nature which gives them an in- 

 expressible charm. (Combe, 1841, vol. 1, p. 70.) 



Many other critics as well as the public succimibed to the charm 

 of Catlin's show. They were willing to overlook the artist's technical 

 limitations in view of his obvious sincerity and the tremendous inter- 

 est of his subject matter. No one had brought the Wild West to 

 civilization in pictorial form for everyone to see before. 



In the fall of 1839 Catlin packed his Indian Gallery and sailed for 

 Europe. He opened in London's Egyptian Hall. The published 

 catalog of this exhibition of Catlin's Indian Gallery listed 507 num- 

 bered paintings, 310 of them portraits. In the same hall he exhibited 

 a fine collection of Indian artifacts — costumes and ornaments, 

 weapons, musical instrument, tools, and ceremonial objects, even a 

 full-sized Crow Indian tipi with a cover of 25 buffalo skins. 



For nearly five years Catlin's Indian Gallery was exhibited in 

 England. Meanwhile Catlin the artist gained a reputation as an 

 author. In 1841 his first and most popular book appeared, a 2- volume 

 work entitled "Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condi- 

 tion of the North American Indians." In it Catlin combined the 

 tall tales of an adventure book with sound ethnological information. 

 Reprinted many times, this has remained a classic description of the 

 Indians and the West. It was illustrated by 312 plates of little line 

 drawings (some less than ^y^" x 3l^", none larger than 5" x 7"). 

 The great majority of these pictures were simplifications of original 



