Artwork
Antelope Shooting - Assinneboine
Antelope Shooting - Assinneboine is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist George Catlin. It dates from 1865 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1865, *Antelope Shooting – Assinneboine* is an oil painting on canvas by George Catlin. The work portrays a group of Assinneboine hunters engaged in an antelope hunt, set against a backdrop of trees that convey a dynamic atmosphere. It exemplifies Catlin’s longstanding interest in documenting the daily activities of Native peoples on the North American frontier.
Subject & Meaning
The composition focuses on a hunting episode, illustrating the skill and communal effort involved in antelope capture among the Assinneboine. By foregrounding the hunters and their prey, the painting offers a visual record of subsistence practices, reflecting the broader cultural relationship between the tribe and the prairie ecosystem.
Technique & Style
Catlin employs a relatively loose brushwork for the foliage, allowing the trees to suggest motion and vitality rather than precise detail. The figures are rendered with a more defined, observational approach, characteristic of his ethnographic style that balances documentary accuracy with a painterly sense of immediacy.
History & Provenance
George Catlin, a lawyer‑turned‑artist, undertook five expeditions into the western territories during the 1830s, producing a large body of work on Plains Indian life. *Antelope Shooting – Assinneboine* emerged later in his career, continuing his systematic effort to record Indigenous lifeways for an eastern audience.
Context
The painting belongs to a series of works that document the vanishing cultures of the Great Plains as Euro‑American settlement expanded. It reflects the mid‑nineteenth‑century American fascination with the frontier and the simultaneous desire to preserve visual evidence of Native customs before they were altered by contact.
Artist & collection
Artist
George Catlin ( KAT-lin; July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the American frontier.
Bulls Fighting
Expedition Encamped on a Texas Prairie. April 1686
An Alligator's Nest
Mrs. George Catlin (Clara Bartlet Gregory)
Chief of the Taensa Indians Receiving La Salle. March 20, 1682
A Small Village - Payaguas Indians
Omaha Chief, His Wife, and a Warrior
Father Hennepin Leaving the Mississippi to Join La Salle. May 8, 1680
