Artwork
Three Celebrated Ball Players - Choctaw, Sioux and Ojibbeway
Three Celebrated Ball Players - Choctaw, Sioux and Ojibbeway is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist George Catlin. It dates from 1861 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1861, this oil painting on card, later mounted on paperboard, portrays three Indigenous men from distinct nations—Choctaw, Sioux and Ojibwe—participating in a traditional ball game. The figures stand on a grassy field, each clutching a stick topped with a wheeled ball, their bodies adorned with painted designs, feathered headgear, and ornamental jewelry.
Subject & Meaning
The work records a communal sporting activity that held cultural significance among many Native groups, emphasizing skill, competition, and ritual. By presenting representatives of three separate tribes together, the composition suggests a shared athletic practice that transcended tribal boundaries, offering a visual narrative of intertribal interaction and the vitality of Indigenous recreation.
Technique & Style
Executed in oil on a modestly sized card, the painting employs a relatively flat background of muted earth tones punctuated by hints of blue and green, allowing the brightly colored figures to dominate the scene. Catlin’s brushwork captures the texture of feathered headdresses and body paint, while the simplified landscape underscores the focus on the participants rather than a detailed setting.
History & Provenance
George Catlin, a 19th‑century American artist and former lawyer, produced the piece during his later career, after decades of traveling among Plains and Eastern tribes to document their customs. The painting forms part of his extensive visual archive intended to preserve Indigenous lifeways, and it remains within collections that house Catlin’s broader series of Native American portraiture.
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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.
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