I was surprised by the recent letter (Sept. 6) of my distant relative Chalmers Hardenbergh regarding the Portland Museum’s upcoming exhibition on “The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington.” He suggested that “Blacks are almost completely excluded from Homer’s canvas.” I hope most Homer-loving Mainers (including my three Down East siblings) are not still under that misconception.
That convenient notion, long common among white New Englanders, died more than 30 years ago with a national exhibition, organized by the Menil Foundation, that focused for the first time on Homer’s Black images during the Civil War and Reconstruction years. It is telling, perhaps, that all the major museums in New York and New England, still uncertain whether Black Lives Mattered in the mid-1980s, expressed no interest in hosting that exhibit.
What is perhaps Homer’s most famous painting, “The Gulf Stream,” centers on a Black figure, as does one of his earliest and least-known images, the long-lost painting called “Near Andersonville,” now in the Newark Museum of Art. I have written a whole book about each of those amazing works, but I obviously forgot to send copies to my relation in Freeport. It’s clearly time to renew our long-distance acquaintance; we have some catching up to do!
Peter H. Wood
Longmont, Colo.
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