The first and freshest pictorial record of Indian life west of the Mississippi was made during the 1830s by iron-willed George Catlin. The civilized world had been taught to regard the Indians either as demigods (by James Fenimore Cooper) or as demihumans (by frontiersmen's reports). Catlin showed them as they were and as they lived. His pictures came as a revelation to Manhattan, London and Paris.

This year, more than a century later, Catlin's triumph was again underlined by a touring exhibition of his work in Europe. Sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency and (and supplied by the Smithsonian Institution), it arrived in the French town of Valenciennes after being in Essen, Munich and Hamburg. As visual, visitors found Catlin's pictures just as surprising and intriguing as their great-grandfathers had.

Sight & Decision. Caitlin's motehr was once captured by Indians, and he himself was born near the frontier--at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1796. But Catlin's early ambitions lay eastward; he taught himself the rudiments of portraiture and offered his painting services in Philadelphia. At 26 Catlin happened to see a straggle of Indians pass through on their way from Washington. The sight made him resolve on the spot that "the history and customs of such a people, preserved by . . . illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country and of becoming their historian."

When Catlin disappeared up the Missouri River, he entered a splendid new world. The natural setting was vast and varied, the Indians rich and strange. The prosperity of the plains tribes had been enormously boosted by the introduction of Spanish horses from New Mexico and California. The Mandan, the Sioux, the Comanche, the Blackfoot, the Crow and a score more nations were at the climax of their glory--which white pressure was to crush in a matter of decades.

Grit & Tact. By sheer grit, Catlin, burdened with painting materials, made his way among no less than 48 tribes in the space of seven years. By instinctive tact, he gained the hospitality of the Indians and overcame their superstitious fears of his brush and canvas. He came back with a priceless historical and artistic record consisting of some 500 pictures, and a lively respect for his Indian friends. Wrote Catlin in his journal: "An Indian is a beggar in Washington City, and a white man is almost equally so in the Mandan village. An Indian in Washington is mute, is dumb and embarrassed; and so is a white man (and for the very same reasons) in this place."

Actually Catlin never could match the skill of such later Wild West witnesses as Remington and Russell. The human figure bothered him; he tended to make it too squat. He used colors more like a mapmaker than like an artist. But Catlin had the crack journalist's eye both for significant sweep and significant detail. And without being dazzled by the romance of his magnificent adventure, he felt and expressed it keenly.

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