The Red Man's Bones: George Catlin, Artist and Showman by Eisler Benita

Author:Eisler, Benita
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

WHILE IN PHILADELPHIA, Catlin had spent time with his nephew Theodore. At eighteen his late brother Charles’s son, called “Burr,” had left Great Bend to find work in the city—without success. Everyone in the family, but especially the grandparents who had raised him, worried about the boy, whose only interests seemed to be pretty girls, parties, and, when he could afford it, the theater. These might seem normal-enough pleasures for any young man, but the family remained haunted by the frailties of his father. Burr’s easygoing ways seemed to bode badly for his future; like his sister, Theodosia, a schoolteacher, the orphan Burr would have to make his own way in the world, and he appeared to be in no hurry to do so.

Where his fun-loving nephew was concerned, George proved to be an astute judge of adolescence. After all, even at forty-three, he still felt tremors of youth’s conflicting needs: freedom and adventure, along with trembling dependency. He foresaw that work on the Indian Gallery would appeal to the stagestruck Burr while filling his need for a substitute family. He paid the boy’s fare on the new railroad from Philadelphia to New York (cheaper at night), directing him to his uncle’s rooms on Fulton Street, where his new job would combine the work of studio assistant and eventually stage manager. Almost at once the towering red-haired Burr became a hardworking—even indispensable—member of the Catlin road show, and right at home in the heart of New York’s theater district.

Exhausted as he was, the prospect of leaving America indefinitely impelled George, the oldest of the surviving children, to visit his sisters and younger brothers, clustered conveniently in upstate New York. From Utica he wrote to assure Burr that he had no doubts that he and his own experienced assistant, Daniel Kavanagh, could manage until he returned to New York City. He should be sure, however, to order four thousand more handbills, making certain that “the public houses be continuously supplied.”

Meanwhile Burr himself was showing a talent for painting and drawing: Artist friends in Philadelphia had found his work remarkable. In a gentler voice, tinged with pride, George insisted that, his nephew’s other chores notwithstanding, Burr must not neglect his gift: “Keep your brush and crayon going at some things all the time,” he urged, “and resolve to keep a steady forward course to improvement in the Art, in spite of everything else.”

A wistful tone pervades George’s welcome of his nephew to the fellowship of art, just as he himself was moving from this “steady forward course,” destination unknown.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.