On Sunday October 30, 1859, Henry David Thoreau addressed the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts, to give his account of the character and actions of John Brown, as the abolitionist stood trial for murder, inciting an insurrection, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. Two weeks earlier, Brown had led an unsuccessful raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, that Brown thought would be the spark to ignite rebellion by enslaved people across the South, and ultimately abolition throughout the nation. Brown’s powerful adversaries––many of whom, as members of the Confederacy during the Civil War, would go on to uphold the enslavement of Black people––portrayed him as a madman and a traitor. Despite the outcry from abolitionist allies including Thoreau, he was sentenced to hang on November 2. In 1942, painter Horace Pippin portrayed the moments leading up to the execution of John Brown. This season of the Artist’s Institute is dedicated to this painting, examining the lasting influence of both John Brown and Horace Pippin in American culture. The Institute began studying the painting with Hunter College graduate students in January 2020, a semester whose final months found us in the streets protesting police brutality and racism––a sobering reminder that the liberation envisioned by Brown and his fellow abolitionists has not yet been realized in the United States.
New York City, NY; NYC