U'sh-ee-kitz, He Who Fights with a Feather, Chief of the Tribe

About this artwork

George Catlin described U’sh-ee-kitz as a “very polite and polished Indian, in his manners, and remarkable for his mode of embracing the officers and others in council.” The artist painted this portrait at a Comanche village in 1834. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 43, 1841; reprint 1973)

Art Historical Context

George Catlin's *U'sh-ee-kitz, He Who Fights with Feather, Chief of the* (1834) captures a striking portrait of a Comanche leader during the artist's groundbreaking travels across the American West. Painted on-site at a Comanche, this oil painting is part of Catlin's ambitious project to document Native American cultures through vivid, lifelike portraits before they were forever altered by European settlement. As a pioneering figure in 19th-century American art, Catlin blended Romantic realism with ethnographic precision, creating an invaluable visual archive now housed in the Smithsonian Amer...

About the Artist

George Catlin · 1796–1872

George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...