Charles Deas

During his short career, Charles Deas was well known for his vivid depictions of Western and Native American life on the Great Plains, and later in his career for psychologically intense scenes. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Deas regularly traveled west to observe Native American life and gather inspiration for paintings he executed back in his studio. Deas' successful career was cut short when, at the age of thirty, he was declared legally insane and institutionalized for the remainder of his life. 

During his youth he was educated by the tutor John Sanderson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after which he moved to New York City to study at the National Academy of Design. Throughout the 1830s, Deas attended life-drawing classes and created works based on literary and domestic genre scenes at the academy. In 1839 he became an  associate member of the academy. 

Deas was so inspired after viewing George Catlin’s “Indian Gallery” exhibition in New York  in 1839 that he decided to move west and become a frontier painter. Deas first traveled to Prairie du Chien, in Wisconsin territory, to visit his brother in the Army. During his stay he visited Fort Snelling, where he sketched and painted Native Americans, trappers, and members of the U.S. military.

In late 1841, Deas moved to St. Louis, where he set up his studio as a portrait painter. While he was in St. Louis, Deas participated in four fairs presented by the Mechanics' Institute. This organization was founded in 1839 to feature the design and production of goods manufactured in St. Louis and to promote their sale. Deas became a member of the Mechanics’ Institute of St. Louis in 1842. He painted portraits of prominent St. Louisans, such as Lewis F. Thomas. With St. Louis as his base, he traveled the Midwest, joining the military on an excursion in 1844 up the Missouri River, and along the Platte River, painting and sketching people and scenes.

During the 1840s, Deas found success showing his artwork at exhibitions in New York City and St. Louis. His paintings had a wide appeal, and Deas was able to capitalize on this by having them engraved and the copies sold. In 1844, he exhibited the painting Long Jakes in New York City, and in 1846 this painting and The Death Struggle were reproduced in New York Illustrated Magazine of Literature. _Long Jakes was also described in Charles Lanman’s book A Summer in the Wilderness: Embracing a Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and around Lake Superior in 1847. _

In 1846 Deas became a member of the St. Louis Mercantile Library. He was the first artist to join the library. The library board gave him a five-year membership after Deas donated a landscape painting of the prairie to the library. Deas lived in St. Louis until 1847, then returned to New York City. In late 1848, friends and family of the artist tried to fund a Native American gallery of Deas’ work, but were unsuccessful. 

In May of 1848, Deas was committed to the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane in New York City, remaining institutionalized for the rest of his life. Although he continued to paint during this time, the paintings were described as “wild” and were not well received.