Local art historian curates Native American exhibition

A Plymouth University academic is curating a major exhibition showing some of the iconic American Indian portraits of the 19th century.

Dr Stephanie Pratt, Associate Professor of Art History, is a long-time admirer of the works of George Catlin, whose works are considered among the most important records of indigenous people ever made.

Now she and Dr Joan Carpenter Troccoli, Founding Director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum, have brought together a selection of his works which will go on display in the National Portrait Gallery in London from March 7 to June 23.

Dr Pratt, who has written extensively on the representation of Native American peoples, said: “As a person of Native American descent, I am very conscious of the extent to which Catlin's record of Plains Indian peoples dominates their representation even today. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to consider Catlin's Indian Gallery and ask whether these striking images adequately address the historical reality of American Indian peoples at that time.”

George Catlin was an artist, writer and showman who documented Native American peoples and their cultures to serve as a record of what he believed to be a passing way of life. He was not the only artist to embark on such a project in the nineteenth century, but his record is the most extensive still in existence.

The free exhibition of his works – titled George Catlin: American Indian Portraits – has been organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London, in collaboration with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington.

Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: “George Catlin made powerful and sympathetic portraits of the American Indians at a time of traumatic historical change. They are wonderful images, and I am delighted that the Smithsonian American Art Museum is collaborating with the National Portrait Gallery to allow them to be seen in Britain again.”

The exhibition runs from March 7 until June 23 2013, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. For more information, visit www.npg.org.uk.