George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA - Buffalo Hunt, Chase No. 7 - unknown - T-Shirt

This hand-colored lithograph shows a mounted hunter on a white horse spearing a bison in the middle of a stampede across open prairie.

Visual Elements & Composition

The scene is framed as a horizontal vignette within a mat, and the action fills it edge to edge. A herd of bison thunders across the picture, with a mounted hunter on a white horse at the centre and an archer on foot drawing his bow at the animals nearby. Fallen bison and a fallen horse lie in the foreground, marking the moment of impact. The palette is restrained: sage green and ochre earth tones, pale sky blue, cream, and dark brown, which give the rolling grassland a quiet, sunlit calm that sits against the violence of the chase. The words "BUFFALO HUNT, CHASE." and the numeral 7 appear within the print.

Meaning & Symbolism

George Catlin, a self-taught painter who lived among many Plains and other Native nations, made this work as part of his effort to record their customs and way of life as westward expansion transformed the frontier. For the Plains peoples depicted, the buffalo hunt provided food, clothing, and shelter, and it displayed horsemanship, bravery, and communal solidarity. The print freezes a single high-stakes moment on the prairie, before industrialization and overhunting changed the land for good.

Where the Print Meets the Shirt

A wide scene like this one needs room to unfold, and the front of a tee gives the stampede that space. The herd and hunters read best when the shirt is worn open to view, so the chase carries across the chest as the wearer moves. Catlin's documentary intent travels with it, a historic image from the 1840s worn as a record of the prairie it captured.