Picturing America
(July 1 - August 7, 2009)

The exhibit at the Museum, entitled “Picturing America”, was organized and awarded through the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is the newest project for the program - WE THE PEOPLE- which was begun in 2002 as a way to teach, study and understand America’s history and ideals.
 “Picturing America” involves 40 printed masterpieces of American art – paintings, architecture, sculptures, photography, quilts, pottery and the decorative arts.

Each work of art is dated, contains a short explanation and is produced in stunning color. Each work is arranged to illustrate America’s revolutionary spirit, the American value of national pride, struggles with the environment, connecting with the Native culture and immigrant roots, and enthusiasm for new challenges.

The following caption accompanies Augustus Saint-Gauden’s bronze relief sculpture “Gould Shaw and the Fifty-Fourth Regiment Memorial.” This sculpture is located at Beacon and Park Streets, Boston, MA and was made in 1884.

“The stakes could not be higher as these men march forth to make a desperate attempt to take Fort Wagner, a Confederate stronghold at Charleston, South Carolina. They know that the battle will be hard and that the odds are against them; but still, they lean into the advance, united in their resolve. The taut, athletic horse, senses their mood, jerks back its head, whinnying and snorting against the rumble of feet, metal, and drums. The soldiers do not yet know what we know – how many will die, or that among those will be the steadfast colonel who rides at their side. They will fail to take the fort, but their unflinching heroism will open doors for others. These men are the first regiment of free black soldiers recruited in the North, and they are fighting for more than others dare hope for: freedom for their enslaved brethren and the right of African American soldiers to serve in the Union Army. Before the Civil War ends, almost 179,000 more black soldiers will enlist.”

Everyone was invited to be part of American history with some of the greatest masterpieces ever created in the United States by visiting “Picturing America”

For information on past exhibits in the Dacotah Gallery, please click here.