George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA - Buffalo Hunt, Chase-no. 5 - unknown - T-Shirt

This tee carries George Catlin's nineteenth-century lithograph of a mounted Plains hunter driving a bison across open grassland at full gallop.

Visual Elements & Composition

The plate is a horizontal rectangle, and the scene fills it edge to edge. A hunter with bow and arrow rides hard behind a charging bison, with the horse stretched out in full stride. Warm sepia tan dominates the image, with charcoal brown and dark ink defining the figures and the animal's heavy form, and pale cream and grey wash giving the open prairie its light and distance. The words "BUFFALO HUNT" and "CHAS" run along the plate, marking it as a Catlin print.

Meaning & Symbolism

For the Mandan, Lakota and other Great Plains nations, the buffalo hunt was a cornerstone of life. The bison supplied clothing, shelter and tools, and the hunt itself showed individual courage, tribal coordination and the bond between people and the natural world. Catlin made this image in the 1840s and 1850s as part of his effort to record Plains cultures before westward expansion transformed them. He treated his paintings and prints as an ethnographic archive, and this numbered plate belongs to that record.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A tee is worn across the chest and shoulders, so the hunt sits at eye level on the wearer, with the charging bison moving toward the viewer as they move. The horizontal plate suits the front of a shirt, where the rider and animal can cross the full width of the chest and the open grassland fills the space around them.