This portrait is remarkable because of who painted it. The artist is Prince Demah Barnes who was enslaved in Massachusetts. This and other works by the same artist are the only surviving fine art created by an enslaved person from colonial America.

Prince Demah’s remarkable story is movingly told in the Memory Place podcast episode: A Portrait (Met Residency Episode 4)

Listening to the podcast episode, I had a moment of confusion when I realized that Prince Demah was from Boston. The history we are taught often glosses over that slavery was legal in the Northern colonies as well. I looked up when slavery ended in Massachusetts: A 1783 decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ended slavery in the state.

This tomb effigy communicates so much emotion to me even as a only a photograph. Every time I look at it, I feel both the artist’s grief and this underlying love for his wife. My recollection from the description in themuseum is that artist who was a painter by profession took up sculpting just to make this which makes it all the more incredible. It’s located in the Met’s Gallery 700, a light filled and airy space, which creates quite a contrast to this monument to one mans grief.

Hamilton may have gotten a blockbuster musical written about him but Benjamin Franklin has always been the founding father that fascinated me the most. In the 4th grade, I wrote school report on him. That Franklin made so many important contributions in so many fields is just amazing to me. This bust is part of the Met’s collection.

These two statues, Hiawatha and Minnehaha, reside in Gallery 759 in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. One of my favorite podcasts, The Memory Place, has a series of 8 episodes each focusing on different pieces of artwork at the Met. I had wonderful time listening to these episodes while viewing the artwork at the Met and that’s best way to experience them. However, most of the world is shutdown right now and visiting museums is not possible so we need ways experience things beyond our homes without leaving our homes. And in that context, listening to these episodes while looking at photographs of the artwork is a compelling way to do a virtual visit to the Met.

The podcast episode Two Small Sculptures is about these two small statues. The episode is a masterpiece. In the episode, Nate DiMeo, the creator of the Memory Place, tells a beautiful and haunting story about these two statues, the then famous poem, The Song of Hiawatha, from which two characters originate and about the arist, Edmonia Lewis, who created the statues. DiMeo’s story vividly illuminates how culture myths, like that of Native Americans being noble savages, give cover to atrocities.

This week is going to a very tough one for New York City so I thought I’d share image from better days there. This is from a summer evening in July of 2018. Warm evening light lit up the sculpture at the top of the facade of Grand Central Station as I walked down 42nd Street.. I know New York City will get through this tough stretch, though the human cost will be high. I look forward to my next trip there.

The Chrysler Building is my favorite building in New York City.  It’s a shining Art Deco masterpiece.  The Empire State Building is more famous but The Chrysler Building outshines it, at least in my book.