About this work
An oil on canvas measuring 29 by 24 inches , this portrait arrests the viewer with the sheer physical authority of its subject. Catlin described this man as "the finest looking man of the party," noting his "elegant" limbs and "Herculean" frame — and the painting delivers on that testimony. The figure dominates the picture plane in the manner of Catlin's finest Iowa portraits: head-and-shoulders against a spare background, the face turned to meet the viewer with absolute composure. The subject is rendered in full regalia, adorned in face paint, feathers, jewellery, and decorations characteristic of Iowa warrior dress — each detail observed with the precision Catlin prided himself on. The palette is warm and saturated, ochres and earth reds playing against the cooler tones of the background, with the ornamental elements providing flashes of contrast that give the composition a quiet but insistent energy.
No-ho-mun-ya — also known as Roman Nose — was an Iowa brave painted by Catlin in London in 1844, and he became ill in Ireland before dying in Liverpool the following year.
He was among fourteen Iowa who toured with Catlin in 1844 and 1845 , a period when Catlin was staging his Indian Gallery across Europe — part documentary exhibition, part spectacle. After spending eight years traveling through the American West documenting Indian life, Catlin had taken his artwork and artifacts on tour to Europe in 1840, trying to make a living while continually working to sustain public attention. This portrait therefore occupies a unique position in Catlin's body of work: unlike his frontier paintings made on the Missouri, it was executed in London, an ocean away from the American West, capturing an Iowa man in a foreign city at a fraught moment in both their lives. Catlin was absolutely determined to paint his subjects as, in his own words, "true and facsimile traces of individual and historical facts."
This is a painting for a room that can hold a presence. It works best in spaces where natural light falls at an angle — a study, a library, a sitting room with dark walls — where the warm tonality of the figure can breathe against its surroundings. Although Catlin's work determines many an image of the native peoples of North America, these are portraits, not stereotypes — and that distinction is felt immediately in front of this canvas. The viewer who lives with it will find themselves returned to the same gaze, the same stillness. No-ho-mun-ya gives no attention, and yet commands all of it.
