George Catlin, Boy's headman - Ojibbeway, 1843 by Natasja Tollenaar

About "George Catlin, Boy's headman - Ojibbeway, 1843"

by Natasja Tollenaar

About the artwork

The head, shoulders and chest of a young man with brown skin, dressed in Ojibbeway tribal clothing, looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. The right side of his face, to our left, is painted crimson and horizontal stripes of red and white outline his other cheek. He looks at us with dark brown eyes under black eyebrows. A silver-white ring hangs from his nose between his nostrils. His upper lip is darker than his skin-coloured lower lip and his mouth is closed. His brown fur headdress has a cardinal red spot on the front in the middle. Pearly white feathers with red tips hang along both sides of his face and down to his shoulders. The sleeves of his brown coat are striped with sky blue, tomato red and lime green, and fringes of the same colours hang down the arms. The fur lining at the neck follows the curve of a series of curved, white claws and a shimmering array of silver-grey beads. He also wears a high, beaded collar with a white and dark brown geometric pattern. A belt crosses his chest. The background behind him is mottled with sage green, brown and creamy white.

Catlin's paintings paint a unique and often impressive picture of the lives of Indian tribes, and the appearance of their chiefs from a period of American history, when influences of European civilisation had yet to make themselves felt in the steppe regions of North America.

George Catlin (Wilkes-Barre, 26 July 1796 - Jersey City, 23 December 1872) was an American painter, writer and traveller who specialised in making portraits of Indians in North and Central America.