‘American Buffalo’ Opens at National Museum of Wildlife Art

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Before you head to Yellowstone National Park this summer to see the real deal, stop at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to see stunning paintings of bison from the early 18th Century.

The exhibit “George Catlin’s American Buffalo” opens May 18 and runs until August 18, featuring 40 paintings by the artist, who produced about 500 works based on the travels among 50 Native tribes in the 1830s, according to the museum. The show takes a “fresh look at the famous works of [Catlin] through the lens of his representation of buffalo and their integration into the lives of Native Americans.”

George Catlin, “Buffalo Bull, Grazing on the Prairie,” 1832-1833, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.

“Catlin’s paintings illuminate in great detail the close ties between Native American tribes and bison in the 1830s, and his writings about the land and its native inhabitants have informed generations of conservationists as they wrestle with sustainable ways to manage America’s Great Plains,” said Adam Duncan Harris, curator of art for the National Museum of Wildlife Art, in a press release.

George Catlin, “Hee-láh-dee, Pure Fountain, Wife of The Smoke,” 1832 oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.

The exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the National Museum of Wildlife Art, is drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection. For more info on “George Catlin’s American Buffalo” and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, click here.