Three Distinguished Warriors of the Sioux Tribe

Catlin executed this work in oil on card mounted on paperboard, a medium characteristic of his Cartoon Collection. He referred to these later works as cartoons because he created the images from pencil outlines drawn on cardboard. The painting features a horizontal oval composition centered against a muted blue-green sky with soft clouds and a grassy foreground. Catlin employed delicate, precise brushwork to render the intricate details of beadwork, quillwork, and fringe on the figures' regalia. The palette relies on earth tones, red accents, and creamy whites. The painting is mounted on a tan board with a gray oval mat, and a small red stamp with the number 7 appears at the top center. The surface shows slight age discoloration around the edges. Inscriptions include the signature and date lower right on the card, the notation A/86 lower left on the card, and an applied label upper center on the board.

George Catlin created this painting in 1861 while re-creating works from his Indian Gallery in Brussels, where he settled in 1860. The work remained with Catlin until his death in 1872, descending to his daughters Clara Gregory Catlin, Louise Catlin Kinney, and Elizabeth Wing Catlin. In 1912, the American Museum of Natural History in New York purchased the surviving Cartoon Collection from Elizabeth Wing Catlin. When the museum deaccessioned the collection, Paul Mellon purchased more than 300 of these paintings through Kennedy Galleries in New York in 1959. Mellon gifted 351 works from the collection, including this painting, to the National Gallery of Art in 1965. The painting was exhibited in Brussels in 1870, at the Somerville Gallery in New York in 1871, and at the Smithsonian Institution in 1872. Later exhibitions include a 1956 show at Kennedy Galleries, extended loans to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, from 1964 to 1974 and 1976 to 1983, loans to U.S. government facilities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and a 2002 exhibition at the Renwick Gallery.

This painting belongs to the second major phase of George Catlin's career. During the mid-19th century, Catlin produced two large collections of Native American portraits and genre scenes. His first Indian Gallery, comprising over 500 works from the 1830s, is largely housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. During the 1850s and 1860s, he produced the Cartoon Collection, which included more than 600 works. After traveling and painting in South America, Catlin settled in Brussels in 1860 and re-created many of his earlier compositions from pencil outlines on cardboard, often combining individual portraits from the 1830s into new group portraits. The Cartoon Collection paintings, including this work, were exhibited in New York in 1871 alongside a published catalog listing the works and providing additional information about the subjects. The painting has been documented in National Gallery of Art catalogs published in 1970, 1980, and 1992. A related version of the composition, titled Little Bear, Steep Wind, The Dog, dating to circa 1865 to 1871 and executed in oil on paperboard, is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. gift.