Image
George Catlin, by William Fisk, 1849.
Credit: ©National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of Miss May C. Kinney, Ernest C. Kinney and Bradford Wickes, 1945
In 1849, English landscape painter William Fisk completed this portrait of 53-year-old George Catlin. At the time, Catlin was living in England with his family, making a living by selling copies of his paintings of the American west, such as those of Black foot warrior Iron Horn and of The Woman Who Strikes Many, which can be seen behind him.