George Catlin, Ki-hó-go-waw-shú-shee, Brave Chief, Chief of the Tribe, 1832, oil on canvas, 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.113
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Ki-hó-go-waw-shú-shee, Brave Chief, Chief of the Tribe
- Artist
- Date
- 1832
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 29 x 24 in. (73.7 x 60.9 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Indian — Omaha
- Portrait male — Brave Chief
- Object Number
- 1985.66.113
Artwork Description
“I have visited forty-eight different tribes, the greater part of which I found speaking different languages, and containing in all 400,000 souls. I have brought home safe, and in good order, 310 portraits in oil, all painted in their native dress, and in their own wigwams . . . as well as a very extensive and curious collection of their costumes, and all their other manufactures, from the size of a wigwam down to the size of a quill or a rattle.” George Catlin probably painted Brave Chief, an Omaha, at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1832. Brave Chief later sat to artist Charles Bird King (1785-1862) in Washington. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, no. 1, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)
