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A Living Landscape – 175 Years in the Making
Between 1850 and 1852, Robert S. Duncanson (1821–1872) painted a series of eight landscape murals commissioned by horticulturalist and art patron Nicholas Longworth to decorate the entry hall of his home, now the Taft Museum of Art. Approximately 9 by 6 ½ feet each and painted directly on the plaster walls, this ambitious project launched Duncanson’s career.
Duncanson moved to Cincinnati from Michigan in 1840, resolved to become an artist. He taught himself by copying prints of European paintings and sketching from nature, initially earning a living by painting portraits. In the late 1840s, Duncanson devoted himself to landscape painting and eventually became the first Black American artist to earn an international reputation. Duncanson even painted for Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom. Likely inspired by the Ohio River Valley, the Taft murals represent imagined landscapes rather than particular places.
After Longworth’s death, changing taste in interior design led to the murals being covered with wallpaper. They were restored before the Taft Museum of Art opened in 1932 and conserved again between 1994 and 2000. The murals are now recognized as the most significant pre–Civil War domestic murals in the United States and are one of the Taft Museum of Art’s largest artworks, second only to the house itself.
William Notman, Robert S Duncanson, 1864, Notman Archives, McCord Museum, McGill University, Montreal
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“Duncanson rarely represented his attitude toward slavery in his paintings. One exception is View of Cincinnati, Ohio from Covington, Kentucky. In it, he contrasted a Black man working with a scythe and a Black woman hanging laundry with a white man and child strolling in the countryside and other white Kentuckians lounging in the distance. The painting juxtaposes Covington’s agricultural setting with Cincinnati’s urban industry—commerce inextricably tied to the South.”
Robert S. Duncanson, Uncle Tom and Little Eva, 1853, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Mrs. Jefferson Butler and Miss Grace R. Conover, 49.498
Continuing the Legacy
Robert S. Duncanson’s art was appreciated in his day, but today, his reputation is expanding rapidly and returning to the forefront as an important contributor to the American art history canon. Discover how you can celebrate the murals’ upcoming 175th anniversary through the Taft Museum of Art’s Duncanson Program.