Art of the American West: Subjects & Themes
Browse works by subject category
North American Indian
The National Gallery of Art's catalog term for Catlin's Cartoon Collection portraits and scenes of Native nations of North America - Mandan, Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Pawnee, Seminole and many more - named here with Catlin's own spellings.
222 worksSouth American Indian
Catlin's paintings from his 1852-57 travels in South America - Amazon, Orinoco and Rio Uruguay villages, hunts and portraits - catalogued under this heading by the National Gallery of Art.
86 worksWarriors
81 worksLandscapes
79 worksTrees
55 worksChief
52 worksMountains
The Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Yosemite and the Canadian Rockies in Bierstadt's paintings and his 1890 Pacific Northwest sketchbook.
47 worksVillage
Catlin's views of Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Mandan, Apache and Amazonian villages and encampments.
34 worksHorses
Remington's bronzes of broncos and troopers, Schreyvogel's cavalry and the horses of Catlin's and Bierstadt's Plains scenes.
31 worksLa Salle Voyages
Catlin's 1847/1848 painted series on the expeditions of Robert Cavelier de La Salle, from Fort Frontenac and the Griffin to the Mississippi and Texas.
26 worksSioux
Catlin's portraits, dances, hunts and villages of the Sioux, painted from his 1830s travels on the upper Missouri and Mississippi.
24 worksBuffalo
Bison on the Plains - Catlin's chases, wallows and wounded bulls, and Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo, painted after the herds had been hunted nearly to extinction.
21 worksWife Of Chief
21 worksDance
Catlin's records of Sioux, Mandan, Choctaw, Saukie and other dances, among the subjects he described most fully in his writing.
16 worksMammal
16 worksHead Chief
15 worksMandan
The Mandan of the upper Missouri, painted by Catlin in 1832 shortly before the smallpox epidemic of 1837-38 devastated their villages.
15 worksBoats
13 worksYoung Man
13 worksAmazon River
12 worksBuffalo Hunting
Mounted and snowshoe buffalo hunts by Sioux, Pawnee and Ojibbeway hunters in Catlin's Cartoon Collection.
12 works