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Náw-káw, Wood, Former Chief of the Tribe
George Catlin (born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872)
1828
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 18 1/2 x 14 in. (47.0 x 35.7 cm)
- Culture
- Indians of North America
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Before George Catlin began his extensive travels in the West, he spent time in eastern cities, where he often saw visiting delegations of Native Americans and painted their portraits. Nine members of a Winnebago delegation from present-day Wisconsin sat for him in Washington, D.C., in 1828, and among them was former Winnebago chief Náw-káw, or Wood. Catlin wrote that “this man has been much distinguished in his time, for his eloquence; and he desired me to paint him in the attitude of an orator, addressing his people.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 52, 1841; reprint 1973)
