Seth Eastman
Seth Eastman
1808 - 1875
American painter and draughtsman. He attended the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, and from 1829 to 1831 he was stationed at Ft Crawford, WI, and Ft Snelling, MN, on topographical duty. He returned to West Point from 1833 to 1840 to teach drawing, and under the guidance of Robert Walter Weir he published Treatise on Topographical Drawing (West Point, 1837). From 1841 until 1848 Eastman was stationed again at Ft Snelling. He began painting scenes of the local Indians involved in everyday activities, as in Chippewa Indians Playing Checkers (1848; priv. col., see Tyler and others, p. 155). Eastman also created several sketchbooks, such as those depicting scenes of the Mississippi River (1846; some in St Louis, MO, A. Mus.) and of Texas (1848–9; San Antonio, TX, McNay A. Inst.)
In the 1850s Eastman was stationed in Washington, DC, to illustrate Henry R. Schoolcraft’s Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851–7). In 1867 he was commissioned by the US Congress to paint a series of Indian scenes and US forts, a project incomplete at his death (26 in Washington, DC, US Capitol). Eastman provided an invaluable record of the scenery of the American West and life of the Native American Indian with journalistic directness. As an artist with little formal training, there is a naive aspect to his work. [Carey Rote. "Eastman, Seth." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 8, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T024766.]
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