Click here to enter the Vault. Mary Williams Fine Arts - THE VAULT The Great Artdoors The primary artists featured are Karl Bodmer, George Catlin and the Indian portraits of McKenney and Hall. These artists, and the work they left behind, stand today as the most important visual recordings of the American West and its native inhabitants. It is of particular importance to note that these works were executed before the age of the camera. The recording of this visual information was an enormous undertaking posing hardship and danger. The paintings done of landscapes, people and the flora and fauna of the vast western land had to be done in the field and while on the move. While these three artists worked independently of one another, they all shared the same sense of urgency to preserve the cultures of the American Indian and their great lands through their art and writings. Once these artists completed their explorations, they set their sights for home where they began the lengthy and arduous process of creating engraving plates or limestone lithographic plates that they could print copies of their field painting. Once the plates were ready, they set about marketing and selling their ethnographic portfolios to the public. These published works were, for the vast majority, the very first glimpse anyone had of the West and its native people! Today these prints represent some of the only visual information we have of the Great Plains Indians and their lands. Catlin and Bodmer, in particular, traveled through the West during the 1830's and lived to see the decimation of the great tribes due to the smallpox epidemic of 1836. Were it not for these explorations and the artwork that came out of them, we would have little if any visual information about entire cultures of American Indians as disease wiped them out before the camera was even invented! They are truly profound bodies of work and gifts to us all. The further importance of the prints published by these men is bolstered by the fact that these works were the first fully illustrated accounts of the American West. Lewis and Clark made history by being the first Americans to cross the United States. Their journals stand today as some of the most important documents we have about our country, however, they did not illustrate what they saw. Karl Bodmer and George Catlin, who followed closely in their footsteps some thirty years later, complemented their historic journey by bringing back extensive visual recordings of the land and its people. Karl Bodmer's depiction of America and it's native people is considered to be the most important body of work on this subject. His accuracy and attention to detail is the key to this widely held belief.

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