George Catlin

George Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on 26 July 1796. He studied at the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, before setting up as a miniaturist in Philadelphia where he worked until 1825. He worked in New York and Richmond and in 1830 made his first trip to the West. He spent the next eight years traveling and painting the American Indians and their customs. In 1839, he took his collection to Europe where he spent the next thirty years, except for 1852-1857 when he visited South America. He returned to the United States and died in Jersey City on 23 December 1872.