Ki-hó-go-waw-shú-shee, Brave Chief, Chief of the Tribe

George Catlin, Ki-hó-go-waw-shú-shee, Brave Chief, Chief of the Tribe, 1832, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.113
Copied 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
  • Portrait male — Brave Chief
  • Indian — Omaha
Object Number
1985.66.113
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/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)