Hope in the Sky: Duncanson’s Inauguration Landscape

The Wednesday, January 20th inauguration of President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was historic for many reasons. Not the least of which because it seems it almost didn’t happen. Our country has been through a twisted tornado of violence, like a hungry beast’s teeth tearing out the flesh of our tender democracy. It’s no wonder the Bernie Sanders mitten memes took off like a rocket. We needed comedy relief, a deep exhale, and a little levity to uplift the spirit.

Like many the world over I was riveted watching the ceremony sending out peaceable vibes and hoping for a safe transition. One of the highlights for me was when Senator Roy Blunt presented President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden with a painting of Robert Scott Duncanson’s, Landscape with Rainbow, 1859. I HOLLERED! I realize I was probably only one of a few art historian’s in the country who instantly knew who Duncanson was and why this work is significant. On loan from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Duncanson was chosen because of the artist’s background and because of the rainbow hanging in the sky as a sign of hope. I can wax quixotically about both of these special features, but instead I dug into my archives to find a short piece I had already written about Duncanson many years ago. He’s been one of my favorite late 18th century - 19th century African American artists, along with Joshua Johnston (1765-1830); Moses Williams (1777-1825); Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901); Edmonia Lewis (either 1843 or 1845 – death unknown and I hope she lives forever); and Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937). So, if you’re looking for a little more on Duncanson…here you go.

Robert Scott Duncanson, (1817-1872), was born in Seneca County, New York to a free Black mother and a Scottish-Canadian father. However, his black grandfather had been enslaved in Virgina. The family would soon relocate to Canada as a way to avoid much of the racism they encountered in the US. The Duncansons enjoyed many freedoms and liberties not afforded in other locales in the United States due to the growing colony of blacks in Canada and the Underground Railroad. Robert S. Duncanson was educated in Canada and received instruction in Edinburgh, Scotland as the result of a sponsorship from the Anti-Slavery League. During the early1840s, Duncanson relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio during a time that was witnessing a cultural boon in the arts including art patronage and educational opportunities for African Americans. 

Ohio’s Wilberforce University and the Hampton Institute in Virginia offered art instruction by Black teachers, but only infrequently. “A few white academies, notably Pratt Institute in New York, the Philadelphia Museum School, and the Art Institute of Chicago, enrolled exceptional [African American] students.” In the early days of the academies, and just prior to, artists required instruction and a place to exhibit their works, and connoisseurs needed a place to exhibit their acquisitions. “If a youngster wished instruction, he would ferret out the name and address of a painter; then unless he was too timid, he would knock on the door, beg for advice, and the sight of pictures.” The American Art-Union solicited works from young artists in the mid-nineteenth century and exacted specific criteria for selection including: 1) origin of the artist, 2) medium of the work, 3) subject matter, 4) artistic merit, 5) the financial need of the artist, and 6) the asking price. The American Art-Union accepted works from Native Americans artists and from European artists living in the US and their works were reportedly treated as “equally regarded.” However, scarce evidence exists regarding the admission of any works by African American artists despite the American Art-Union’s President’s affirmation of its most promising feature – that of its national character. The Western Art Union was established in 1847 in Cincinnati and circulated some of the latest works available by artists of the Hudson River School. Original works and reproductions from artists such as George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Cole, and other Hudson River School artists were made available to Duncanson. 

Although largely self-taught, Duncanson was a passionate practitioner of the Hudson River School. His landscapes capture the sublime and the magnificent in the early American frontier with hints of majesty and romanticism. He also was an experienced photographer, muralist, and painter of still lifes. In 1853, Duncanson embarked on his second journey to Scotland sponsored by the Anti-Slavery League. He identified more with his Scottish heritage than his African American heritage and while in Scotland traveled to many of the places in Sir Walter Scott’s poems and Scottish legends. Duncanson sought the support of abolitionists throughout his career and “abolitionists assisted him to a greater degree than they did other black artists, with the exception of Edmonia Lewis.”      

Currently, Duncanson is known to have painted few Black subjects. He was commissioned in 1853 by James Francis Conover, editor of The Detroit Tribune, to paint a scene from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852.) Uncle Tom and Little Eva, which demonstrates Duncanson’s awkwardness with figures and the subject matter. The clumsy figures seized the attention of a critic from Detroit’s Free Press on April 21, 1853, “Uncle Tom according to the artist is a very stupid looking creature and Eva instead of being a fragile child is a rosy complexioned healthy seeming child, not a bit ethereal.”

Nevertheless, Duncanson received many commissions and enjoyed a prosperous career as one of the most sought-after landscape artists of his day. He traveled extensively throughout the US, Canada, and Europe receiving commissions from the Duchess of Sutherland and having his work purchased by the King of Sweden and Queen Victoria. The abolitionist, Reverend Moncure D. Conway wrote to the Cincinnati Gazette, commenting on Duncanson’s Lotus Eaters, 1861, “In Glasgow and other Scotch cities he [Duncanson] exhibited these paintings with success. He has also received a letter from the poet laureate, Tennyson, inviting him to visit at his home in the Isle of Wight, where he will go and take with him the ‘Lotus Eaters.’” Duncanson’s travels to Europe often led him to view other artist’s work like Claude Lorrain, “whose classically arranged compositions and atmospheric effects had influenced many Hudson River painters.” Duncanson also traveled to England, France, and Italy with fellow landscapists William Louis Sonntag and John Robinson Tait. It was this personal connection with other artists as ‘peers’ and his travels that brought him in contact with another landscapist’s work which formed his classroom and studio.