America 250: From Independence to Discovery
Follow the Story from 1776 to the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Smithsonian American Art  Museum - The George Catlin Indian Gallery

📍 Location: 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC
🟢 Free|
 

What to do & see:

• Explore one of the nation’s most significant 19th-century visual records of Native America. The Smithsonian American Art Museum houses George Catlin’s Indian Gallery—more than 400 paintings and artifacts created in the 1830s.

• Catlin’s works trace his travels along the Missouri River and vividly portray the lives, ceremonies, and leaders of Plains tribes at a moment of rapid change.
   

Why it matters to Lewis & Clark:

• Catlin’s work extends the legacy of the Lewis & Clark expedition by visually documenting the Native nations first encountered and recorded by the Corps of Discovery.

• In 1830, Catlin formed a pivotal partnership with William Clark, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis. Drawing on Clark’s firsthand knowledge from the 1804–1806 expedition, maps, and tribal relationships, Catlin gained access to communities along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

• Clark personally introduced Catlin to tribal leaders and fur-trade networks, enabling travel to remote posts—including Fort Union—and facilitating portrait sessions with leaders of the Sauk, Fox, and Sioux Nations.

• Together, Clark’s journals and Catlin’s paintings create a rare, complementary record: words and images that preserve Native cultures of the early 19th century and deepen our understanding of the world Lewis & Clark helped reveal.