American Art Collaborative

George Catlin described Kay-a-gís-gis as “a beautiful young woman pulling her hair out of braid.” Catlin painted this portrait at Fort Union in the upper Midwest in 1832, and it was one of his first attempts to show facial expression. The woman’s smile, somewhat forced, but engagingly shy and self-conscious, is an indication of the artist's growing perception of individual qualities among subjects whose appearance had not been critically examined before. (Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979