George Catlin's American Buffalo

Presenting forty major oil paintings by George Catlin from the mid-late 1830s, this volume re-examines the legacy of this complex artist. Many of Catlin's paintings were produced following his 1832 expedition down the Missouri River, past the prairie lands of Oklahoma, where he witnessed the landscape blackened by millions of bison. On one level Catlin's paintings offer an insight into nineteenth-century American ideas about the land and animals of the continent. But he was also the first to champion the notion of a national park to protect the buffalo and Native American people, that he portrayed so vividly in his paintings.

Accompanies a major travelling exhibition: National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson Hole, WY, May 10, 2013–August 25, 2013; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, October 1, 2013–December 29, 2013; Wichita Art Museum, KS, February 1, 2014–May 11, 2014; Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL, October 4, 2014–January 1, 2015; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston Salem, NC, February 12, 2015–May 3, 2015