Three Young Tobos Men 1854 - 1869

George Catlin made this watercolor painting on paper, titled 'Three Young Tobos Men', sometime in the 19th century. Catlin's work reflects a concerted effort to document the appearance and customs of Native Americans, which he saw as rapidly disappearing. The material here is significant: watercolor on paper was a readily available, portable medium, well-suited to an artist traveling through remote territories. But it also implies a certain distance from the subject. Catlin was not working in monumental stone or oil paint on canvas. The very intimacy of the medium suggests a personal encounter, yet rendered in a way that maintains a separation between artist and subject. This is not to diminish the skill involved, but to highlight the cultural dynamic at play. Catlin’s paintings are valuable historical documents. But they are also artifacts of a colonial encounter, subtly shaped by the artist's own cultural perspective.