Gaw zaw que dung, He Who Halloes

Description

Earthen ochre and deep russet brown carry the weight of this portrait, set against a muted background that neither competes with nor recedes entirely from the sitter. Touches of pale cream and ash grey mark out ornament and highlight, catching against the darker ground with a restraint that keeps the whole surface in quiet balance. There is little in the way of bright pigment here; the strength of the picture lies instead in how closely the warm skin tones sit beside the cooler shadow, and how a single passage of white or bone colour can pull the eye across an otherwise sober field.

About Gaw Zaw Que Dung, He Who Halloes

Gaw zaw que dung, He Who Halloes, painted by George Catlin, belongs to the extended body of portraits the artist made recording the Native peoples of North America during his travels of the 1830s. The subject is presented frontally, close to the picture plane, with the kind of direct, steady gaze that recurs across the series, and Catlin resists any theatrical arrangement of pose or setting in favour of a plain, dignified record of the individual before him. The paint handling is economical rather than showy, built up in thin, controlled layers that let the drawing underneath do much of the descriptive work.

What distinguishes the picture within Catlin work of this period is the confidence of its restraint. Rather than dramatising his subject through invented light or exaggerated colour, Catlin lets the natural gradation of ochre through umber carry the modelling of the face, so that shadow and structure emerge from the palette itself rather than from any applied effect. It is this quiet control of a limited range of colour, values held close together and never allowed to clash, that gives the portrait its lasting presence and makes it a rewarding subject for close, unhurried looking.

Reproducing a picture built on such fine tonal distinctions calls for real skill, and this oil painting reproduction is completed as a handmade oil painting, hand-painted by a professional artist working directly in oil on canvas rather than through any mechanical process. Each hue is mixed and matched by eye against the original, the ochres and umbers built up in the same thin, layered manner Catlin used, so that the brushwork itself, not just the image, survives into the new surface. The canvas carries a genuine weave and a real depth of pigment, qualities a flat print simply cannot hold.

The hand-painted reproduction

What is carried across is not only the drawing but the exact relationship between one tone and the next, the precise point at which shadow gives way to highlight, since it is that relationship, more than any single colour, that gives the original portrait its quiet authority. A collector examining the surface closely will find the same restrained palette, the same close tonal register, translated faithfully rather than merely approximated.

• Hand-painted in oil on artist-grade canvas
• Available in multiple sizes
• Gallery-ready presentation
• Certificate of authenticity included
• Painted to order in 2 to 3 weeks, then delivered in 5 to 7 days