“LAND OF THE LOTOS EATERS” by Robert S. Duncanson (1861)
FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM: Robert Seldon Duncanson (1821–1872) was America’s best known African American painter in the years surrounding the Civil War. His parents moved the family from Virginia to Fayette, New York, near Seneca Falls, where Duncanson was born. In 1840 at the age of 19, the artist moved to Cincinnati, then the largest and most prosperous city on the western frontier. By the 1850s the “Queen City” had developed a reputation for its pro-abolitionist leanings. But even here Duncanson walked a fine line, acknowledging his heritage without flaunting it. Duncanson worked hard to make a decent living and raise a family working as an artist of color during the antebellum and Civil War years.
AN OVERVIEW OF DUNCANSON’S LIFE AND WORK FROM THE WALLACH GALLERY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY