Jim and His Daughter

“The man who makes himself the [Jean-François] Millet of the Indian, who paints him just as he is, as he works, as he lives, will strike the lasting note.” Chicago’s mayor, Carter H. Harrison, Jr., gave this advice to Walter Ufer during the artist’s first summer in New Mexico in 1914, suggesting that he should not, for example, rehash romantic interpretations of Native American life. The artist took Harrison’s advice and depicted the lives and work of contemporary Native Americans, including Ufer’s favorite sitter and close friend, Jim, shown here in profile with his daughter.