Book Review – Catlin gallery ‘complicated’

By Karl Hele

George Catlin and His Indian Gallery is a collection of images and articles that illustrates just how complicated the images by and persona of George Catlin are. The volume’s authors establish that the modern image of the “Indian” — while a product of Catlin’s work — was not necessarily his intention. Essays by Brian W. Dippie, Therese Thau Heyman, Christopher Mulvey, and Joan Carpenter Troccoli examine Catlin in multiple ways.

The “Indian Gallery” refers to approximately 600 paintings and drawings by Catlin created between 1830 and 1836, as well as collected cultural artifacts of Western Indians and landscapes that were displayed in the United States and Europe from 1839 to 1872. The collection acknowledges that Catlin, inspired by romanticism and American expansionism, sought to record the “vanishing Indian”.

Three things stand out in this collection. First, is the large number of colour images of Catlin’s work that makes them more accessible and useable. Second, is that Catlin staged the first wild west show in Europe via his use of Indians to enliven his “Gallery”.  It is pointed out that Ojibwa and Iowa people joined the exhibition for their own reasons. Third, is the juxtaposition of the exploitative nature of Catin’s work and its contribution to the modern image of the “Indian” with the visual sovereignty enacted by the artist’s subjects. Indigenous subjects exercised visual sovereignty by choosing to sit for a portrait as well as selecting their clothing for the occasion. These actions are often neglected or minimized by critics of Catlin and his work.  This volume nicely ties together images from the “Indian Gallery” and the artist, while complicating the interpretation of all three.

George Gurney & Therese Thau Heyman, eds.  George Catlin and His Indian Gallery. New York: Published for the Smithsonian American Art Museum by W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. Pp. 294. B&W and Colour Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.