George Catlin's American Buffalo - by Adam Duncan Harris (Hardcover)

About the Book

Re-examines Catlin's art and his vision of a "nation's park" to protect the buffalo and native American people

Book Synopsis

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

Review Quotes

"The fully illustrated, 213-page catalog written by Harris is interesting and informative"--Stephen May, Antiques and the Arts Weekly

About the Author

Adam Duncan Harris has been the Petersen Curator of Art and Research at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, since 2000. He received a B.A. from Brown University before continuing on to the University of Wyoming for an M.A. in American Studies. He finished his academic studies at the University of Minnesota, where he received a Ph.D. in Art History. At the National Museum of Wildlife Art, he has written extensively on wildlife art.