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Sky-se-ró-ka, Second Chief of the Tribe
George Catlin (born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872)
1834
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 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
In 1834, George Catlin accompanied a regiment of United States Dragoons to visit the territory of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita. While at a Comanche village, he met Wichita chief Sky-se-ró-ka, whom he described as “a fine-looking and remarkably shrewd and intelligent man.” The sensitive modeling of Sky-se-ró-ka's features compares favorably to Catlin's best work on the dragoon expedition. (Catlin, 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)
