The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas

1844/1845

George Catlin

Artist, American, 1796 - 1872

This vertical portrait shows the head, shoulders, and chest of an indiginous Iowan man with brown skin whose face is mostly painted with red and green. His body and face are angled to our right and he looks into the distance with dark eyes. Crimson-red paint covers his forehead, the sides of his cheeks, and neck. Four parallel lines of pine green angle up his right cheek, on our left, like the four fingers of a hand. A green line on the other cheek could be the thumb, and the palm might have left the green mark on his chin. The man’s nose and cheeks near the nose are unpainted. His spiky headdress is ornamented with two feathers and is held in place with a wide band of dark fur that wraps across his forehead and around the back of his head. Earrings hang from the lobes and tops of his ears, and he wears a necklace made up of bear claws, beads, and seashells, including an oval shaped, medallion-like shell at his throat. His garment is made up of white fur and what appears to be tawny-brown animal hide. Tan-colored clouds create a screen across an ice-blue sky in the background.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
During the 1830s, traveling with fur company representatives, cavalry officers, and later alone on multiple western journeys, George Catlin gathered drawings, sketches, and notes that would allow him to create an “Indian Gallery”—a collection of more than 500 paintings of American Indians. By the end of the decade, he would be widely recognized as the most celebrated painter of America’s native people. Catlin painted this portrait of White Cloud when the chief and a small party of Iowa joined the artist in France to promote a European tour of his “Indian Gallery.” The tour included a stop in Paris, where the Iowa performed before King Louis Philippe.
Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Paul Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 71 x 58 cm (27 15/16 x 22 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1965.16.347

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

George Catlin [1796-1872]; by descent to his daughters, Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin; purchased 1912 from Elizabeth Wing Catlin by the American Museum of Natural History; sold 1959 through (Kennedy Galleries, New York) to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1965 to the NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1965

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1965-1966 (loan to Three Centuries exhibition was extended).

  • Three Centuries of American Painting, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1965.

1972

  • The American West: Painters from Catlin to Russell, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; The St. Louis Art Museum, 1972, no. 19.

1980

  • American Indian Life: Paintings by George Catlin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.

1981

  • George Catlin, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1981-1982.

1986

  • America: Art and the West, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986-1987, no. 4, repro.

1999

  • America: The New World in 19th-Century Painting, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, 1999, no. 56, repro.

2007

  • Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation, National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Museum; The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, 2007-2008, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 27, repro. 25.

1979

  • Truettner, William H. The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin's Indian Gallery. Washington, D.C., 1979: 294.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 124, repro.

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: no. 18, color repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 548, no. 829, color repro.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 84, no. 19, color repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 105, repro.

1998

  • Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition: Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World. Madison, 1998, no. 27.15, repro.

2002

  • Gurney, George, and Therese Thau Heyman, eds. George Catlin and His Indian Gallery. Exh. cat. Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 2002-2003. Washington, D.C., 2002: 70, 71 fig. 9.

Wikidata ID

Q20187209

You may be interested in

Loading Results