Modeling Museum Practice | A Commitment to Black Artistry and Robert S. Duncanson's Legacy

Some anniversaries simply invite us to celebrate. Others encourage us to ask why a legacy has endured. As the Taft Museum of Art commemorates the 175th anniversary of Robert S. Duncanson's landmark murals alongside the 40th anniversary of the Duncanson Program, we have a rare opportunity to reflect on how one artist's legacy has evolved from a remarkable chapter in history into a model for museums committed to creativity, community, and cultural equity.

In 1850, a young Black American painter named Robert S. Duncanson stood in the foyer of Nicholas Longworth's home and began work on a suite of eight monumental landscape murals and four still-lifes, brushing the pigments directly onto the plaster walls. That commission, unusual for its scale, launched Duncanson's career. He would go on to become the first Black American artist to achieve international acclaim at a moment in American history when such a trajectory was almost unthinkable. Today those same paintings, 175 years since their creation, continue to inform the Taft’s mission.

2026 also marks a second milestone, the 40th anniversary of the Duncanson Program. Founded in 1986 by the Taft and the Robert S. Duncanson Society as a two-week artist's residency, it was one of the first in the country to intertwine arts education with a residency for Black artists across performing, literary and other disciplines as well as the visual arts. It has since expanded to a year-round endeavor, ensuring that Duncanson's presence in the museum and in the community would never be treated as a historical footnote, but as an ongoing commitment to investment in Black artists.

What makes the Duncanson Program worth studying is not just its longevity, though four decades of continuous operation is rare for an artist-residency model. It's the clarity of its founding logic. The Duncanson Society, established by the late Doris Rankin Sells and William Joel McCray and then-Taft CEO and President Ruth K. Meyer, did not set out to build a program that merely referenced Duncanson's work. A museum mural can be preserved, catalogued, and interpreted without the institution ever challenging itself about what kinds of people make up its audience, or what artists it invests in.

Together, the society and museum understood that honoring a legacy and activating it are two different goals, and they built a program to do the latter. As Duncanson Society and Board of Directors member Dara Kendall explains, “I feel that we are guardians for ensuring our community is considered here, with respect to what is put on display and then how it is characterized, so that we ensure that people do still find the art relevant. It’s Robert S. Duncanson’s art as well as any other type of art that we bring into the museum so that they can see a tie for themselves.” Her comment captures the society's enduring role, both in preserving Duncanson's legacy and ensuring that exhibitions, interpretation, and programming remain connected to the communities the program was created to serve. 

For Duncanson Society member Doris Stokes, who has been a part of the society’s efforts for many years, the program’s community-centered approach reflects its deeper purpose: “To me, there needs to be a forum and an outlet . . . somewhere for all of that energy to go. The Duncanson Artist-in-Residence program is that forum and outlet. All that energy can come here and then go back out into the community.” Her observation highlights the residency's role as a conduit between artistic practice and public life, creating space for creative exchange while ensuring that the benefits of artists' work extend beyond the museum's walls.