About the George Catlin papers
All information on this page comes from A Finding Aid to the George Catlin Papers, ![[Download PDF Version]](/images/website/pdficon_small.gif)
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Biographical Information | Description of the Collection | How to Use the Collection
Biographical Information [+]
George Catlin was born in 1796 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Although trained as a lawyer, Catlin quit his law practice and moved to Philadelphia in 1823 to begin a career as a portrait painter. He gained membership in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1824, but his career in formal portraiture met with little success. In 1830, Catlin embarked upon his lifetime achievement of documenting the lives, customs, and culture of the declining native American population of the Plains. He spent the next six years traveling, drawing, painting, and writing about the Plains Indians. By 1837, he had amassed enough documentation to hold a major exhibition in New York of Catlin's Indian Gallery of Portraits, Landscapes, Manners and Customs, Costumes, etc. The same exhibition, with an added live show, traveled to London in 1842 and Paris in 1845, where it was met with rave reviews. READ MORE
Description of the Collection
Overview - Scope and Contents [+]
The collection comprises 2.3 feet of papers concerning George Catlin's creation and promotion of his famed "Indian Gallery" of paintings, drawings, and artifacts of North American Indians. Dating from 1821 through 1904, with one item dated 1946, the papers include letters, notebooks and journals, receipt books and loose receipts, printed materials, and other documentation. The bulk of the collection focuses on Catlin's efforts to promote the sale of his gallery to the United States government through tours, including London and Paris, and petitions to various governments to purchase the Gallery. Among the rare printed catalogs and petitions in the collection are exhibition catalogs for the U.S., London, and Paris tours, the earliest dating from 1837. Letters and other documents include letters dating from the 1830s from Henry Clay, Thomas Sully, and William Henry Seward commending Catlin's work, as well as Catlin family correspondence and papers dating from 1821 through the 1870s. READ MORE
Arrangement and Series Description
The George Catlin papers are arranged into five series based primarily on document type. Within each series, materials are arranged in chronological order.
- Series 1: Correspondence, 1821-1885 (Boxes 1, 6; Reel 5824; 12 folders)
- Series 2: Writings, 1825-circa 1872 (Boxes 1, 6; Reel 5824; 9 folders)
- Series 3: Financial Records, 1826-1848 (Boxes 2, 6; Reels 5824-5825; 13 folders, 3 bound volumes)
- Series 4: Catalogs, 1837-1871 (Boxes 3-5; Reel 5825; 1 linear foot)
- Series 5: Ephemera and Miscellaneous Printed Material, 1832-1904, 1946 (Boxes 5-6, OV 7; Reel 5825; 14 folders)
Subjects
This collection is indexed in the online catalog of the Archives of American Art under the following index terms. People, families and organizations are listed under "Subjects" when they are the topic of collection contents and under "Names" when they are creators or contributors.
- Subjects-Topical:
- Art and race
- Indians of North America -- Portraits
- Portrait painters
- Illustrators
- Miniature painters
- Painters
- Ethnological illustrators
- Ethnological painters
- Types of Materials:
- Photogravures
- Names:
- Seward, William Henry, 1801-1872
- Sully, Thomas, 1783-1872
- Clay, Henry, 1777-1852
Provenance
The papers of George Catlin were transferred to the Archives of American Art by the Library of the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Accession records indicate that the papers were once maintained by the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology and were probably part of the orginal 1879 acquisition of Catlin's Indian Gallery by the Smithsonian. Businessman Joseph Harrison rescued the "Indian Gallery" from Catlin's creditors in the 1850s and stored the collection in a Philadelphia warehouse, where it suffered damage from at least two fires before Harrison's widow donated the collection to the Smithsonian.
How the Collection was Processed
The collection was processed by Patricia K. Craig in 2001. The microfilm was digitized in 2005 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
How to Use the Collection
Restrictions on Use
The George Catlin papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
A digitized version of the microfilm of this collection is available online via the Archives of American Art website.
Available Formats
This collection has been digitized. View the George Catlin papers online
The microfilm for this collection has been digitized and is available online via the Archives of American Art website.
Related Collections
The Archives holds several related collections of differing provenances related to George Catlin, including a small collection of manuscripts and drawings microfilmed on reel 1191 related to Catlin's work in marine art and documentation. A microfilmed loan of circa 500 items is also available on reel 3277 of letters between Catlin and Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1840-1860, writings by Catlin and material on Catlin's Indian Gallery, including clippings, catalogs, handbills, invitations, drawings and portrait sketches of native Americans, and printed material; a watercolor sketchbook; a list of paintings; and miscellany. Also found within the Archives is one undated letter microfilmed on reel D8 from Catlin, and a collection of art historian William Truettner's research papers on George Catlin.
How to Cite this Collection
George Catlin papers, 1821-1946. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.