Green Corn Dance - Minatarrees

Catlin employed oil pigments on a relatively small card surface, a medium that allowed for quick, portable work during his expeditions. The brushwork emphasizes the bright coloration of the costumes while rendering the figures with a straightforward, documentary clarity, characteristic of his broader visual approach to ethnographic subjects.

The painting was produced during Catlin’s extensive journeys through the western territories in the 1830s, though it was not completed until decades later. It later entered the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where it remains part of the institution’s holdings of Catlin’s extensive series documenting Indigenous peoples.