I need a 2 page essay about George Catlin— his life and work: Give me a summary of George Catlin’s life and career. When was he born? When...

George Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1796 and as a young man, trained as a lawyer. He abandoned the practice of law just three years after passing the bar exam in 1818. There is no evidence to suggest that Catlin received much, if any, formal art training though he had shown an aptitude for drawing from childhood.  He began his painting career as a portraitist and miniaturist but found this kind of work unfulfilling.

Catlin grew up on a farm in New York about forty miles from his Pennsylvania birthplace, often exploring along the Susquehanna, and once, when he was nine years old, he encountered a friendly Oneida man. Catlin's mother and grandmother had been abducted, held, and released without harm by Iroquois in the late 1770's.  When Catlin was living in Philadelphia and painting portraits in the late 1820's, he encountered a delegation of Native Americans on their way to the nation's capital.  It was then that Catlin discovered what would be his life's work; he is quoted as saying "nothing short of the loss of my life, shall prevent me from visiting their country, and of becoming their historian" (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/george-catlins-obsession-72840046/).  He called Native American men "lords of the forest" and "Nature's dignitaries." He openly criticized the government and fur traders for their cruelty and exploitation of Native Americans.  Despite his professed respect for Native Americans and zeal to record their humanity before it vanished from America, Catlin is seen by his critics as an invader who exploited his subjects and made a living off their likenesses.  Reactions to his work from the Native Americans he painted was also mixed, though it is thought that his relations with his subjects was more often cordial than otherwise.

Catlin painted Red Jacket, a Seneca, in New York, in 1826 and began his travels west in 1830 on a steamer on the Missouri River. For the next seven years Catlin traveled to and painted nearly 150 Native American nations from the border of what is now North Dakota and Montana to Oklahoma. He is known to have painted in Minnesota, around the Great Lakes, and Florida, as well. 

In 1834, Catlin traveled in what is now southwestern Oklahoma in the company of the Dodge-Leavenworth Expedition, and the works he produced then of Plains Indians in this area are thought to be the first by a white artist.  

Late in his life, after a few years successfully showing his paintings in Europe, Catlin had a difficult time garnering sufficient interest from the US government in acquiring his work. Catlin's persistent financial problems resulted in the loss of many of his paintings to creditors and private collections. During the 1850's he is thought to have traveled extensively in South America, Central America, and the Pacific Northwest, continuing to produce work as in his early career.  

In 1871 Catlin was invited to the Smithsonian where he lived and worked for the next few months as the museum acquired a collection of his paintings.  Catlin's health began to fail, and shortly after joining his daughters in Jersey City, New Jersey, he died in December of 1872.