Review of Charles Deas and 1840s America by Carol Clark, with contributions by Joan Carpenter Troccoli, Frederick E. Hoxie, and Guy Jordan

Authors

Gail E. Husch, Goucher College

Date of this Version

Fall 2010

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 30:4 (Fall 2010).

Comments

Copyright © 2010 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

His known works are not many-ninety-eight paintings, drawings, and prints are listed in Carol Clark's catalogue at the end of this richly documented volume-and almost half have not been located. Most of the artist's extant paintings were produced between 1833 and 1849. By the age of thirty, Charles Deas (1818-1867) was disturbed enough to require institutionalization; he spent the rest of his days in one asylum or another. With a career of such apparently limited scope and scale, one might wonder whether the artist deserves the attention he is given in this book and in the exhibition at the Denver Art Museum that it accompanies.