Contact: Tom Cook 406-444-1645  Release: Receipt

ARTIST GEORGE CATLIN’S VISIONS ON THE MISSOURI TO FORT BENTON

                Artist George Catlin left us his visions of Montana and the West much as Lewis and Clark had found it just a few years before he made his own trip up the Missouri River.

                On Thursday (April 27) at 6:30 p.m. at the Montana Historical Society Missoula photographer Lee Silliman will present “George Catlin: First Artist Up the Missouri River” focusing on the Native Americans he met and painted along the way.

                In the 1830s Catlin spent enormous energy to record on canvas the lifeways and portraits of what he called “the vanishing races” that lived on the Northern Plains.

                In his illustrated talk, Silliman will present the evolution of the ideals Catlin experienced as he struggled to convince his fellow countrymen and Europeans that Native American culture deserved to be honored and protected.

                The program is free and open to the public.