Women Who Documented the World.

Gertrude Käsebier, Chief Flying Hawk, 1898.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, many viewed Chief Flying Hawk as a performer.

He appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, clad in traditional attire, reenacting battles from America's westward expansion, becoming part of a traveling spectacle that entertained millions in the United States and Europe.

However, the man captured in Gertrude Käsebier’s photograph held a much deeper story.

Flying Hawk was a Lakota warrior from the Northern Plains. During the 1870s, he opposed U.S. expansion into Indigenous territories and rode alongside key figures of Native resistance, including Crazy Horse. He witnessed the violent transformation of his world and endured the subsequent years when Native communities were confined to reservations and forced to adapt to a rapidly changing reality.

Like many Native Americans of his era, Flying Hawk encountered limited opportunities after the Plains Wars. In 1898, he joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, partly to earn a living. Yet, reports suggest he deeply disliked reenacting the very conflicts that had reshaped his life. Audiences saw entertainment, but for many performers, the memories behind those acts were genuine.

This tension is what makes Käsebier’s portrait so captivating.

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most esteemed photographers of her time. Alfred Stieglitz referred to her as the leading portrait photographer of the day, and in 1899 her photograph The Manger sold for $100, an unprecedented price for a photographic print at the time. Her work contributed to establishing photography as a serious artistic medium.

Käsebier stood out for her ability to look beyond appearances. Her portraits often seem less focused on costume, status, or profession, and more on the individual before the camera.

Observing Chief Flying Hawk today, one might wonder about his thoughts. We cannot know. Photography cannot grant us access to a person's private thoughts. Yet, portraits sometimes reveal something else: the complexity of a life that defies simple categorization.

Warrior. Survivor. Performer.

All three aspects are present in this photograph.

More than a century later, the portrait remains powerful because it reminds us that history is seldom straightforward. Behind public identities are often lives shaped by contradiction, loss, adaptation, and endurance. Käsebier's photograph preserves not only a face but a glimpse of that complexity.

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