I just completed a work titled The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Slavers Redacted for America's semiquincentennial this week.
It is, of course, a remix of John Trumbull's iconic painting, which includes portraits of everyone who signed the nation's founding document. My version, as the title suggests, removes every signer who owned enslaved people. I researched the historical record as thoroughly as I could. A depressingly small number of figures remain.
This is the second time I've worked with this subject. Back in 2018, I painted a watercolor version. Even then, I dreamed of doing it in oil, but at the time I didn't yet know how to paint in that medium. Eight years later, I'm pleased to have finally fulfilled that particular dream.
As it happens, the original watercolor version is now hanging in the Norman Rockwell Museum.
