Presented is a striking original 1908 photogravure by Edward S. Curtis from The North American Indian, depicting White Man Runs Him, a distinguished scout of the Apsaroke (Crow) tribe. The subject stands isolated against the expansive plains, his figure illuminated by the harsh, clear light of the high country, casting a long shadow behind him. His traditional attire, including a feathered headdress and bead-adorned shirt, testifies to both status and cultural continuity, while the warrior’s introspective gaze and upright stance convey a calm defiance and resolute pride.

White Man Runs Him played a key role as one of General George Custer’s Crow scouts during the 1876 campaign that culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Curtis photographed him decades later, preserving not only his likeness but his legacy at a pivotal moment when the memory of the frontier was already receding. Printed on tissue-weight Japon vellum and copyrighted in 1908, this image remains one of the most iconic from Curtis’s monumental ethnographic project and one of the most widely reproduced among his portraits. An evocative and historic plate from Volume IV of The North American Indian that encapsulates both the beauty and burden of representation.