Good evening and thank you for joining us. For the last event in a series of four terror lectures in American Up.
This series is sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art, which is dedicated to fostering exploration,
understanding and enjoyment of visual art for the United States, for both national and international audiences.
In collaboration with the Department of the History of Art at Oxford and Wooster College,
the Foundation grants an annual fellowship to a leading scholar in American art.
Amy Mooney is the terror visiting professor for 2019 2020.
The Tara lectures have this year been included as part of the Live Online Event series in the Humanities Cultural Programme.
One of the founding Stones for the Future, Stephen Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.
My name is Wes Williams. I'm Professor in French Literature, Baseless and Edmund Hall here in Oxford.
And I'm also the knowledge exchange champion at Torch, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.
We at torture are delighted to be able to host this lecture series, particularly on this vitally important topic,
one which has become in recent weeks especially salient throughout this evening's lecture.
If you have any questions, please feel free to add them in the YouTube chat box.
And we will do our best to answer as many of these as part of the session in about 45 minutes or so after the lecture.
To get your questions in early, though, so that we can gather them together in good time for the discussion.
We're delighted that this lecture will be introduced and chaired by Professor Jeffrey Batching.
Jeffrey holds them professorship of the history of art in the Department of History of Art and the Faculty of History.
He's also a fellow of Trinity College. Professor Benson's work as a teacher, writer and curator focuses on the history of photography in particular.
And it's my absolute pleasure to welcome Geoffrey this evening. And now, Geoffrey, I'll hand over to you.
Thank you very much. And he was it's my honour to introduce Amy Mooney as our speaker.
Amy and Moody is an associate professor at Columbia College, Chicago, where she teaches courses on African-American art and visual culture.
The publications include a monograph on the Chicago painter, Archibald Jay Mottley,
junior, part of the David C. Driscoll series on African-American art,
was published in 2004, which has also made contributions to anthologies and catalogues including Beyond Face New Perspectives in Portraiture in 2018.
Archibald Mottley, Jazz Age, Modernist 2014 Lackies Black eight in 2013 and remain Bearden in the Modernist Tradition from 2009.
She is the recipient of fellowships from the American Council,
the Learnt Societies Black Metropolis Research Consortium with the Andrew Mellon Foundation,
the Joyce Foundation, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Terror Foundation for American Art.
In collaboration with the revered photography historian Dr Deborah Wills and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College.
And you recently launched a digital humanities project. Say it with pictures then and now that recovers and critically examines the work
of Chicago's African-American photographers from the 80s and 90s into the 1930s.
As part of the Terror Foundation's Art Design Initiative, this project will generate an exhibition and catalogue.
That brings to light Chicago's contributions to the formation of modern black subjectivities.
During her tenure as the Terror Foundation visiting professor of American art, she's been completing her second book,
Portraits of Noteworthy Character Negotiating a Collective American Identity, a project that investigates the social function of portraiture.
The book is forthcoming with Duke University Press Amy.
With that, I hand over the screen to you. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
Thank you so very much for the kind introduction and much appreciation for all of those who are joining us today.
And greetings from the Provo's lodgings here at Wooster College.
I am very much looking forward to our discussion. And I'd also like to take the opportunity before I begin to express appreciation for my colleagues
in the Department of the History of Art at Oxford and at Wooster who have so warmly welcomed me.
And I'd also like to offer profound gratitude to the Terror Foundation for American Art and to Columbia College, Chicago,
for supporting such opportunities, as well as to the Oxford students with whom I have felt so privileged to work with.
Finally, I'd like to also express my sincere appreciation to the colleagues at Oxford's Research
Centre for the Humanities for providing the platform for this evening's live stream.
This is the last of a four part lecture series.
Drawing from my forthcoming book is just said Portraits of Noteworthy Character Negotiating a Collective American Identity.
And in this, as you have seen probably through the whole series,
I'm exploring the central role of portraiture played in fostering social change in the United States as
progressive individuals and institutions relied on its cultural capital to further their political ideologies.
For this final lecture, I focus on an exhibition generated by the Harman Foundation in 1944 called Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin.
This group of more than 50 portraits toured the United States for nearly 10 years
with the intention of not only celebrating the contributions of African Americans,
but also modelling social integration and the possibilities of civil rights.
Considering the aesthetics and logistics of the exhibition,
I'll explore the ways in which the philosophies of Alé Locke inform the optimistic belief that the experience of the portrait
could generate social change in order to understand how this exhibition impacted US perspectives through portraiture.
I'm going to begin briefly by examining its central figures that realised it.
Mary Brady and Allie Mock as it's through their interactions that the exhibition comes into being.
I will then consider the strategic objectives of the exhibition and the artists that they selected to paint the portraits.
And finally, how the experience of viewing and participating in the portraits of outstanding Americans of Negro origin played out in the media.
Along the way, I'll introduce close reads of a handful of portraits with the promise of more and further complete consideration in the book.
This chapter builds upon the groundbreaking scholarship of Tilley's of Learning in Dr. David Driscoll,
as presented in their 1997 exhibition, Breaking Racial Barriers.
One of the many examples of how the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery supports the investigation of American identity.
This venerable institution played a significant role in the commissioning and organising
of the Obama portraits that have served as a point of departure for this lecture series.
You have been invited to the embossed card with its gilt Smithsonian SEAL rests in your hand.
Immediately your mind tries to imagine the event, the space in which it will take place.
The excitement of seeing the portraits unveiled, what they look like.
And what will the Obamas say about them? What insights might the artist offer?
Who else will be there? What will you wear?
I begin with a speculative Interpol that relations as they point to the portrait, as a memorable and personal experience.
In effect, a celebration, a social gathering around an American national tradition,
the unveiling and reception of portraits of the former president and first lady.
This is an example of a myriad of ways that we make portraiture,
a social process that is affirming of one's presence, inclusion and sense of belonging within the national identity.
The experience of viewing a portrait is an opportunity not only to look at, but to look with,
to be affirmed as part of the collective that shares and values the power of representation.
Certainly this awareness directed the collaboration between the artists and their subjects, reflecting the former president's hope for the portrait.
Gandhi wisely stated, quote, Barack Obama is incredibly sensitive to representation and to art history.
He wanted to make sure that this image communicated who he is in the world.
And from the very beginning, he wanted to have a very relaxed man of the people representation,
even the smallest details, things like the open colour,
the absence of tie, the sense that his body is actually moving toward you physically in space as opposed to feeling aloof.
All of these subtle things went into this portrait needs.
And considering the experiences of looking at these portraits, Mr. Obama noted that he was moved by the artist's, quote,
extraordinary care and precise vision in recognising the beauty, grace and dignity of people who are so often invisible in lives.
Why are these portraits forced us to look and see them in ways so often that they are not?
And quite similarly, Amy Sherrills approach to portraiture seeks to shift how and who we see as she states.
Quote, I paint the American people and I tell American stories to the paintings.
I create my approach to portraiture is conceptual. Once my paintings are complete, the model no longer lives in that painting is themselves.
I see something bigger and more symbolic, an archetype in, quote, mindful of this trans vision from self to collective.
In her remarks at the unveiling of the portrait, Mrs. Obama said that she was, quote,
thinking about all the young people, particularly the girls and girls of colour,
who in years ahead will come to this place and they will looked up and they will see an image
of someone who looks like them hanging on the walls of this great American institution.
I know the kind of impact that this will have on their lives because I was one of those girls.
And quote, As per Mrs. Obama's remarks,
portraiture inherently is an investment in the future as it presumes that there will be an audience to experience and witness its material presence.
Her words allow us to consider the conceptualisation of future redy, as theorised by scholar Tina Camped,
who describes it as an imperative rather than a subjunctive, as a striving for the future.
You want to see right now in the present such an urgent vision.
Inform the unveiling of another exhibition of portraits more than 70 years ago and
reverberates with the remarks made by Howard University professor Alan Locke.
As the keynote speaker for the closing of an exhibition of portraits of distinguished citizens of Negro Heritage in 1946,
Locke interwove his philosophical beliefs on critical pragmatism and cultural pluralism into his remarks
with an audience of over a thousand crowded into the auditorium of the Chicago Historical Society.
The professor shared his deeply held conviction that this exhibition presented the opportunity for trans valuation,
affording a substantive shift in the personal values of viewers that would inform their social, political and cultural actions.
Persuasively addressing a multiracial audience. LA posited that the experience of black subjectivity, as represented through portraiture,
could change the personal values that informed racism and xenophobia.
He argued that through the artistic portrayal of extraordinary African-American individuals such as Labour organiser Aissa Philip Randolph,
opera singer Marian Anderson and sculptor Richman Bartek,
perception itself could be reformed and inculcated toward an appreciation of diversity, equity and inclusion.
For all those who experience the exhibition for luck, the portraits of African-American professionals like Judge Jane Boland,
pilot William Campbell and author James Weldon Johnson were proof that, quote,
the full gamut of accomplishments is opened up,
that the whole psychological pressure of prejudice is lifting and there is no longer a completely blocked path for us in any line or accomplishment,
unquote. In his concluding remarks, he observed, quote, When we look at all of this at the light public opinion allowing this,
as well as the increasing preoccupation of the white artist with Negro subject matter and the quiet
way that Negro men and women in art are taking their place in the general scheme of art development,
we are all aware that it is impossible for a truly American art or progress to develop on race pride low.
It must develop in American pride in our own conviction that all groups have the same potential we see in our Negro youth and quote,
blacks emphasis on American pride and his strategic deference that the accomplishments of those portrayed could not have been realised by race.
Pride alone speaks to contemporary concerns that racial now be some threatened the
possibility of all groups progressing together toward the realisation of democracy,
although seemingly optimistic in an enlightened public opinion, allowed such an exhibition.
Locke's Commitment to the Imperative.
The portrait reflects the tensions of post-World War Two America in its continued failure to extend civil rights to all of its citizens.
In referencing the quiet way of art,
creation and appreciation to achieve a more egalitarian society closer to a sludge in general anxieties over the escalating degree of
violent racial conflict as African-American soldiers returning from serving their country were only denied basic civil liberties.
This temperate prescription through which African-Americans could take their rightful places reveals a deep belief that art,
particularly the portrait,
had the potential to generate a collective national identity that was inclusive and conscious of African-American contributions.
Locke reasons that the mutual experience of valuing the portraits of African-Americans seeing reading of their accomplishments,
sharing appreciation with one another, would generate positive feelings and thereby pragmatically alter and impact behaviours.
The circulating exhibition was part of a portrait of outstanding Americans of Negro Origin initiative generated by the Harmon Foundation,
a philanthropic organisation dedicated to recognising and promoting African-American achievements in the fields of fine arts,
business, industry, education, literature, music, race, relations, religion and science.
Founded by real estate magnate William H. Harmon Harlem in 1922, the foundation began with the stated purpose of, quote,
encouraging and stimulating individuals to self-help, stressing the values of self-reliance and hard work.
The foundation supported a wide array of programmes that reflected contemporary thought on the purpose of art in society.
For the foundation's director, Mary Beedi Brady, Art was in service to society and played several roles.
She believed that art provided evidence of social social advancement and was a constructive use of leisure time.
But most tellingly, through the work working with advisers such as Emily Locke.
She came to see art as a pedagogical tool that could end.
Racial prejudice. Together, they planned an ambitious,
multitiered programme that included the creation of more than 50 portraits that travelled from coast to coast, the United States,
as well as the development of extensive supported materials such as a portfolio of reproductions, lectures,
photographs of the artists and a film strip that were distributed to schools, churches and community organisations across the United States.
Portraits of outstanding Americans of NUGA Origin toured the United States for 10 years and was installed in museums,
galleries, libraries and community venues by the foundation's account.
Millions of Americans saw the paintings in person and even more engaged with reproductions and educational materials,
leading Brady to link the US Supreme Court's landmark decision in 1954 to the end of segregation due to the impact of the portraits.
Certainly in retrospect, it's difficult to believe that such an assertion.
Such an assertion. Yet commissioning and exhibiting so many large scale portraits.
And they range between three by five. Be up to three by four.
Four feet. This is just simply without precedent.
Their subsequent acquisition and positing within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery reveals About Home Me reveals
much about the representation of black subjectivity and its role in the formation of a collective American identity.
Looking to the portraits to function in what they termed a social instrument for change,
Locke and Brady understood that the honorific painted portrait communicated the status and importance of the subject and
thus could be used as a vehicle to transfer social capital to black subjects who historically been denied such recognition.
Following the philosophies of Progressivist Chewey, John Dewey and Pragmatist's William James.
They reasoned that the shared experience of portraiture exhibit would prove to be
a unifying and mutually beneficial for anyone who attended to ensure reciprocity.
Arrested Tippity. Excuse me. Brady and Locke believed that the portraits had to adhere to an academic template,
relying on the effect of a conceptual realism that actively challenged that your rational fears of racism.
In essence, they sought to apply the lessons learnt from the primers,
the progressive's and the politics of respectability to generate the proper regard for African American citizens.
The foundation encouraged to classically trained artists, Laura Wheeler Waring, who is African-American, and Betsy Graves,
we know who zero American to paint portraits of African-Americans who had either been recognised by the Heart Heart Foundation,
received this Dingaan medal for the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People,
or had garnered a national reputation for their professional achievements.
This preventing ensure that the portraits were depictions of those judged to be
respectable and contributing to the advancement of civil rights in America.
Stage photographs of the artists were juxtaposed to form a sort of frontispiece for the portfolio.
The portrait reproductions demonstrate from the beginning,
the foundation conceived of the propagandistic potential of its philanthropic efforts miling interracial
cooperation between artists intent on the honour of the selected American African-American subjects.
They were wearing or rindo received financial compensation for the portraits.
Rather, the artists were invited by the Hermann Foundation to create the portraits as a means of furthering their own careers,
political agency and commitment to achieving racial equality.
Likewise, the subjects of the portraits were expected to give their over their own likeness.
To further the cause and the promise of increased public awareness of their achievements.
Since its 1944 inaugural debut at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the exhibition was celebrated for its integrationist politics.
At the time, James Herring, the director of the Howard University's art gallery,
observed that while the exhibition goes beyond the boundary of art into the realm of cultural and social relations,
and the launch of the project was sponsored by the US Department of Interior and endorsed by Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary Harold Ickes.
This for hearing optimistically reflected, quote,
the increasing consciousness of responsibility that the nation's leaders had developed toward the Negro in contemporary American life.
And certainly the conception in reception of the exhibition reveals a number of contradictions that are
inherent to white philanthropical organisations that supported African-American artists during this period.
In fact, throughout the foundation's forty five year duration, several artists condemned at segregated exhibitions and policies,
citing them as patronising and harming the development of professional black artists.
And indeed, there are mitigating circumstances around the commissioning of the portraits that merit further consideration.
The portraits were not created as individual private objects to be inherited within a privileged family, lenient.
Rather, they were conceived as a collective validating experience that would generate a public sphere in which one could witness social change.
For Mark,
the function of art in the United States was to complete the process of self realisation begun in the reconstruction period and thus providing,
quote, a black subjectivity that would become an agent of cultural and social revolution in America.
Although perhaps best known for students stewardship of the Harlem Renaissance and his conceptualisation
of the new Negro luks cultural activism drew upon the innovative ideas around value theory and necessity,
a re-examination of the impact of portraits of outstanding Americans of Negro origin.
The exhibition opened at the height of World War Two,
underscoring the continued need to address the divisiveness within the United States as it fought fascism abroad.
In many parts of the initiative were modelled after the strategies and aesthetics developed during the Work Progress Administration,
better known through its acronym, the WPA. As part of Roosevelt's New Deal,
this programme encouraged American artists to use a recognisable imagery in their work with the goal of making art accessible to a broad audience,
encouraged to consider their practise as part of a distinctly American social experience.
WPA artists and administrators staged openings and exhibitions to ensure the widest viewership possible.
Their subject matter was influenced by the administrator's goal of generating a common heritage and purpose,
creating a sense of community success for the nation and like the like the narratives and murals and prints that retold America's history to itself.
Portraits of American heroes are seen andin Cornwell's fortification of Andrew Jackson,
those who succeeded against the odds were familiar and reassuring during this era of
uncertainty marked by war and racial violence in their generation of a usable past.
However, the WPA commissions rarely included specifically mean heroic black subjects.
Here in Douglass's epic mural's aspects of Negro life, created for the Schaumberg branch of the New York Public Library,
relaid the black experience from Africa to slavery to reconstruction to urban modernity to an anonymous silhouetted figures,
though both Brady and Lunk admired Douglass's approach. They wanted to honour distinctive individuals using their likenesses to form a critical
citizenship in which the accomplishments of specific persons could be extended to all,
forming a more inclusive and shared knowledge of national history.
Brady and Locke also hoped that the exhibition could provide a more positive narrative than
those that address social injustice by explicitly depicting the violence and lynching.
Sponsored by the end of the ACP and leftist leaning organisations such as the John Reid Club, the exhibitions,
such as an art commentary on lynching and the struggle for Negro rights,
sought to raise public awareness of the horrific crimes against African-Americans.
Shifting sympathy into active support for the proposed national anti lynching legislation.
Using a variety of media and subjects to visualise the virulent expression of racial hatred.
Participating artists such as Joe Jones and Borers Colbert, Gorelick sought to prompt viewers into a deeper understanding of racism's cost.
Instead of a direct confrontation of white supremacy,
portraits of outstanding Americans of Negro origin sought to support the recognition of commonalities,
extolling some of the values such as hard work and self-reliance that were presented as uniquely American within the popular sphere.
For their exhibition and Brady Ripley's depictions of black suffering with representations of black triumph,
believing that this was the best course to generate Interpeace herself, Darity and further the advancement of civil rights law.
Like many intellectuals before him, understood that to render the likeness of a black subject was to enter into the rhetoric of personal values,
asking viewers to draw upon their own such activities. If the portrait could elicit emotional affinities,
more reason that the attitudes and actions could then result in pragmatic consequences of social change,
whereby the respect and admiration for those represented in the images transferred to all
black individuals as the most long term and central adviser to the Harmony Foundation.
Ali Locke's lifelong enquiry into value formation serves as a framework to consider the condition, circulation and lasting impact of the exhibition.
During his graduate school studies at Harvard, Malcolm worked with a variety of scholars to homes understanding of value theory,
investigating the social context and psychological account of how values emerge in the human consciousness.
In his synthesis of William James is promoted. Pragmatic theory led him to understand the relationship between our daily world of practise
and a world of value creation were bound through lived experiences through his teaching,
scholarship and culture. Advocate C Mark reasoned that if racial equality was going to be realised,
it had to be experienced and art was amongst the means to generate such an experience.
The ideas of John Dewey also reverberated within Locke's intellectual circle, as he believes, quote,
The moral function of art is to remove prejudice to do away with the scales that keep the eye from seeing into purrfect the power to perceive,
end quote. Dewey advocated for a layered consciousness of looking, moving from recognition to perception.
For him, the differentiation relied upon the degree of emotional interaction generated by the experience.
Further, like Dewey Locke, quote, sought the root of a static consciousness in the emotions rather than the logical,
reflective knowledge, and called for an empathetic openness to our experience to realise the aesthetic dimensions of our lives.
Following in XY ology based on pragmatism that would build new knowledge from social experience love,
the Bradys sought to redirect the language of portraiture,
believing that its conservative, staid academic approach would ensure the greatest legibility of the racial identity,
accomplishments and character of the SIDOR. In the portrait of famed educator Miriam Be Cleared Buffoon.
For example, painter Betty Reneau depicted her subject in three quarter length posts.
Standing near a curtain at the left, there's a painting of one of the first buildings at Bethune Cookman College.
Is positioned directly above the educator's head as an indication of her dedication and founding role in this revered, historically black institution.
Tilting her head slightly to the right thing looks directly out at the viewer with a frank candour
for which she was known to renew casts a spotlight on this subject to highlight her features.
But the effect also creates a long shadow,
symbolically indicating the depth and influence of Bethune's work in seemingly amplifying her presence in the portrait at a right in her right hand.
She holds a cane that once belonged to Franklin D. Roosevelt, a reminder of her service in the president's black cabinet,
an informal group of prominent black leaders that advise the president and his wife
on how to ensure that African-Americans benefited from the New Deal programmes.
In her nomination for Horyn Award in the field of race relations, Bethune was cited,
quote, not only as an outstanding woman of a race, but by general consent.
One of the outstanding women of the world, quote, As if echoing these words,
Turino included a globe directly in front of the singer, though a reference to worthiness merited by Bethune's influence.
Its turn to show North and South America and with the United States prominently outlined,
it seems to project Parthians national allegiance and diligent work toward integrating African-Americans into Africa into American life.
The overall effect of the painting is one of exploitation.
Presenting the formidable presence of a woman who, according to Ali, lock in his biographical sketch that accompany the portrait,
quote, has dared to cross the frontiers of hatred and rise above the misunderstandings.
And prejudice and Renaud's sensitive portrayal makes visible loks assessment of Bethune's character is being,
quote, endowed with a great spirit of service to our own people and a great faith to herself and human nature.
Moreover, the honorific painting counters a contemporary racist by biographical account that described her as,
quote, large black folk bosomed and strong limned,
evoking the longstanding stereotypes to which black women were subject to these reductive words were penned by Edward Embry,
the president of Julius Rosenwald founded Fund, a philanthropic organisation that funded schools for African-Americans in the rural South.
And to note the extent to which Yaro Americans unconsciously perpetuated the
very bias that they reported to be working against and is especially heinous.
As he concludes his biographical summary under Thune by stating, quote,
She does not fall into anybody's found picture of an old southern mammy, end quote.
Even in his attempt to celebrate her substantive accomplishments, Embry reifies a demeaning and misogynistic trope.
In contrast, Renaults portrait depicts a professional and elegantly dressed with gleaming brown eyes.
The artist carefully modelled her skin to reflect the light, using a broad palette of brown,
purple and pink tools to capture the highlights on her facial features, refuting Embry's essentially see Reed.
Her skin colour as, quote, call black highlights also for empathy underthings,
dark suit, suggesting the richness of the fabric and its flattering drape.
And for each portrait that she contributed to the series. Reno carefully recorded the singer's likeness.
No realistic yet idealised manner, showing the racist stereotypes that even those who believed they had good intentions harboured.
Contemporary reviewers praised the portrait, noting, quote, as a delineation of character.
Few paintings can equal the understanding and human sympathy shown in the face of Mary
McRoy through the dusky grey purples of her skin are enriched by the Deep Purple.
Her dress and the dark clad figure makes a forceful contrast with the light background and the writer's avocation of understanding and human sympathy.
Or a particular note for this underscores the expectation of portraiture to foster connexions between the viewer and the represented subject.
Given the racial stratification of the era, the reporter's response to the painting models exactly what Mark and Brady hoped for,
that the experience of seeing African-American subjects through the venerable tradition
of formal portraiture would provide alternative ways of feeling toward the subject,
not as merely serving as a counterexample to the stereotypes of visual culture.
These portraits also modelled a different mode of consciousness by extolling the
accomplishments of the SIDOR and insisting on the recognition of their humanity.
The portraits, programming and supportive materials demanded that viewers value the sitters leader.
In his writings, LARP argued, quote, Value reactions guided by emotional preferences and affinities are as important or is as potent
in the determination of attitudes as pragmatic consequences are in the determination of actions.
In the generic and best sense of the term pragmatic, it is important to take stock of one as the other.
In a survey of the history of fine art in portraiture, Locke took stock and called out, quote,
the blindness of the Caucasian eye as it could not see beyond a half caste psychology that distorts all true artistic values.
With few exceptions,
he noted that African-American subjects were cast in several roles positioned along the periphery and rarely portrayed as accomplished individuals.
Moreover, Locke recognised that many artists, such as Sidney, Mont.
Had not really developed the technical skill to render the variety of pigmentation and the subtle value of black skin and,
quote, postulating that social conventions stand close to God or a painting that most of the other arts.
Locke argued that a new school in idiom of Negro portraiture would be particularly significant.
Far too often, he observed and said, social conventions generate objectionable character terms and negatively impacted the black psyche.
In realising an entire gallery of honorific, larger than life portraits of African-American subjects,
Marc saw an opportunity to shift the narrative of American art and history.
And by applying the values associated with portraiture such as status and veneration,
Locke reasoned that the exclusionary apparatus could be appropriated in rearticulated as part of an enabling formation.
The dignity and formality of academic portraiture pretended a fundamental shift
in recognising and valuing African-American contributions to the culture,
history and politics of the United States.
And given that these portraits circulated during the time where the national media for blackface minstrelsy of Amos and Andy,
the experience of them refuted the conception of that subject could as entertaining buffoonery.
Using the most stayed in Quotidien Manor, a fine art portrait,
her portraits of standing Americans of Negro origin challenged and destabilised
prevailing racist attitudes requiring viewers to confront their own biases and ignorance.
The static and formulaic approach employed by Renault and Wareing reinforce the cultural value of the
genre of portraiture while simultaneously representing the values of black subjectivity further.
The X exhibition events that within the collective construct of blackness.
There was diversity. Not only did the exhibition present a wide array of accomplished professionals,
it also depicted the variance in each individual's skin tone and physiognomy,
contributing another layer toward decentralising blackness,
opening viewers to the plurality that was central to Locke's conceptualisation of African American identity.
In short,
Lucht believe that the Hohmann Foundation could have a broader impact on dispelling racial prejudice by literally bringing Americans face to face,
creating an opportunity for the negotiation of the past as well as the possibility for the future.
And to that end, he hopes that the portraits would inspire racial pride for African-Americans and encourage others to achieve similar success.
It was Brady who insisted that the portrait of Lotte included in the exhibition.
And she pressed Vienneau to quickly create one from a photograph,
casually smoking a cigarette while seemingly lost in thought and wearing his Oxford jacket.
Mark is depicted as a scholar and a gentleman, as in many of her portraits renewal position Lasseter against a plain background,
ensuring that viewers focus on the subject's face.
Only a small stack of books at the left gives clue to the numerous publications that Lockett authored by this time in his distinguished career.
The creamy yellow hues on the wall behind the figure contrast with a warm round tones used to render his skin breathing,
striking shadow and light effect that emphasises the shape of Locke's permanent four head,
a conventional portrait her that visualise the subject's intellectual pursuits.
Yes, it's telling as to the character traits that viewers ascribe to this portrait of the first African-American
Rhodes Scholar and the first graduate with a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University,
writing the original exhibition label for the portrait. Media expert and educator Lyman Bryson directed viewers to consider all of the
philosopher's accomplishments secondary to his purported forbearance and tolerance,
writing, quote, He has mastered Western thought and can teach them of some of the doctrines of the philosophers.
And as a critic of the arts life, he's earned the gratitude of all lovers of clarity and beauty.
But his greatest is in the Mandeb and his patients with which he waits for the
rest of mankind to discover what his race has done and can do in the future.
The idea that Locke waits with Big Man in his patients is not only mischaracterises his constant advocacy for racial progress,
it also reveals the desire for African-Americans to accept and tolerate Jim Crow policies and the continued denial of their civil rights.
In the portrait, there is a dynamic tension within the figure that counters Bryson's assertion of acceptance,
and Stacie's love pushes his elbow back on the desk behind him,
yet leans forward toward the viewer, hugging his hand to his torso in such a way that it pushes his jacket open,
revealing a dark and best beneath that contrast with the weight of his jacket and shirt.
When coupled with his brown tie, these choices seem more symbolic than sartorial.
It's as if this philosopher's clothing signifies his constant negotiation between white and black.
Between what can be seen in the light and what must remain closer to the heart cloaked by shadow as a closeted gay
black man constantly negotiated the expectations of the white heterosexual realms of academia and philanthropy.
His family was amongst Philadelphia's black athlete and expected their son to live by the decorum of respectability politics.
The presumption that this rigorous thinker and constant advocate possess endless patience is to
perpetuate the myth of black benevolence toward an even tolerance of white ignorance and bias.
Bryson's incongruous characterisation exposes the complicated and often culture victory process of Trian valuation.
The copious exchange of letters between Malcolm Brady attested a mutual belief that art could and should affect social change.
Yet at various points in their relationship, the two had serious conflicting perspectives regarding the existence of a racial art.
By the 1930s, Locke expanded his argument for racial art then only to be a continuance of African legacy,
but also to recognise the unique experience of being black in America.
Locke biographer Jeffrey Stewart identifies the shift toward a quote DiCamillo view that contemporary Negro artists were so warped after
internalising European notions of white supremacy that they found it difficult to properly value what was valuable in their own traditions,
especially the black body itself, end quote. This shift informs Lux essay.
The Negro comes of a. Negro artist comes of age excuse me,
written for the 1933 Harmon exhibition of works by African-American artists in which he advances the idea that, quote,
the psychological process by which the Negro artists became a subject by rendering him or herself through pictures and,
quote, defines the relationship to society based on their own subjectivity.
And this would allow for the transformation that was needed to occur for black people, as well as white people to see beauty differently.
And in new places, according to Locke. According to David Scotland, David Driscoll,
Brady saw herself as a facilitator charged with the responsibility of encouraging and stimulating creative thought amongst school administrators,
art teachers, museum personnel and community leaders.
In her opinion, the role of the portrait was, quote,
to show the American public and the world the contributions to our natural national life through culture,
science and government that have been made in our time, regardless of race.
Convinced of its efficacy, Brady advocates that quote Through portraiture, dignity, intellectual calibre,
achievement, charm, leadership and authority may be conveyed by the artist in presenting a human being.
And for Brady, the physical experience of being surrounded by a collection of life size portraits of black
subjects literally coming face to face with the viewer could have what she called to be a start.
In fact, making portraiture, quote, a very dynamic way in which to present positive achievement.
Ideally, the startling effect was not a reaction to the formal qualities of the portrait,
but a way in which it affected change in the viewer allowing for a shift in values.
According to Brady, the foundation strongly believe that, quote, pride of race is at the base of all progress of individuals or groups.
And we think that it is important for the Americans of Knicker Origin to have pride for a race.
We believe that this type of approach is constructive and equally useful for all parts of our population.
In order to foster this interracial pride and each of the exhibitions, venues,
the hosting committees or individuals staged a variety of social events intended
to engage audiences and create memorable experiences widely covered in the press.
These events are telling in regards to the language used to describe the objectives of the exhibit.
Headlines such as white and Negro hostesses to greet public art and show huge audiences as to the integration of social etiquette,
then informed the securing of the exhibition and organising events which purportedly, quote,
different at which purportedly different, quote, differences of colour were forgotten.
As members of the two groups mingled socially chatting over fruitcake and tea or viewing the paintings together and.
The reported mingling was accompanied by photographs of two members of the Milwaukee Interracial Federation,
a black woman and a white man who posed next to the portrait of Dr. John Andrew Kenny,
a theme surgeon who co-founded the National Medical Association.
Readers could admire their admiration of the portrait as well as their proper interracial decorum.
Teacups and all. The very premise of the exhibition was to use the achievements of the extraordinary to effect the social status of the ordinary,
which, as we have seen with a central component of the etiquette text and illustrations that were exam within your lectures.
Yet the image is incorrectly captioned as it identifies the portrait as being of another famed scientist, George Washington Carver,
demonstrating that the editor,
the photographer and anyone else who was looking was suffering the blindness of Caucasian eye as it asserted itself again.
The egregiousness of the era as if one African-American scientist could be swapped out for another is further amplified,
as the reporter noted that, quote, President Truman proclaimed Saturday as George Washington Carver Day, quote,
The mistake indicates the extent to which the racist disregard informed US national consciousness working within such systemic discrimination.
The Harmons attempts to educate the public were inherently fraught,
making it difficult to definitely assess the impact of the exhibition and its programming.
Yet there are some archival records that support the foundation's assertion that the
exhibition increased the public's awareness for the need to address racial injustice.
The foundation carefully tracked reviews of the exhibition as similarly massive scrapbooks that
served to document its possible popularity and the realisation of its integration's objectives,
largely consisting of laudatory clippings from newspapers from around the U.S.
The scrapbooks testified to the foundation's justifications of resources required to generate this transformative experience.
For example, in one media interview, an African-American teacher relates that he brought his students to the exhibition to ensure
that they realised that there had been contributions by Negro people to American culture.
That his words and thereby countering his own experience as a boy, are believing that all the leaders were white.
When the exhibition debuted at the San Francisco Palace of Honour under the sponsorship of Until ACP,
the local African-American press proclaimed the portraits, quote, will fill you with pride that you were able to claim racial heritage with these
men and women who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of art,
science, education and government. Other journalists reported that the exhibition expose, quote,
the conspiracy of silence by the white press regarding the achievements of Negroes in seeing the
beautiful portraits and reading the biographies proved to be overwhelming and an inspiring experience.
And many specifically called out the impact of the exhibition would have on children pronouncing,
quote, it will stimulate them to greater accomplishment to the end of their days.
Amongst the most significant people to access the exhibition was lawyer Charles H.
Houston, who was critical in laying the legal groundwork that led the Supreme Court to outlaw segregation in public schools.
Writing to support the continued exhibition of the portraits, Houston observed,
quote, its value encountering the Negro stereotypes which motion picture industry,
comic publications and public school textbooks have imposed upon America can not be overestimated.
These stereotypes have given America and the world a completely unrealistic,
integrated estimate estimate of Negroes which totally unfit the white people affected from dealing with Negroes on an intelligent basis in Houston,
noted the profound impact of the exhibition, stating, quote,
I can think of no better way to advocate tolerance and understanding and promote goodwill and to ensure accessibility of the portraits.
Beyond the constraints of time and place, the hiring foundation created numerous ancillary materials,
including sets of photographic copies of 23 of the portraits.
The advertising leave the position these portfolios as, quote, something new in art and interracial understanding,
quote, and recommended that they would be of use for libraries, clubs, schools, colleges, churches and individuals.
Further, the leaflet suggested that they could be used for, quote,
programmes on race and unequal achee and achievement and as well as de corps for your home.
End quote. The copies of the portraits ensured the continual community engagement sought by the Home and Foundation in under Brady's guidance.
The foundation followed the teachings of John Dewey, looking for art to personally affect one's life,
seeking to move beyond the expectation of art as, quote, simply a picture to hang on the wall.
Pieces of sculpture are something to look at. Apart from life, she advocated that art be away in the call of life.
Amongst the many programmes that were generated to ensure the broadest audience
engagement cutlery exhibitions that featured the portfolio of reproductions.
The Cleveland Public Library, for example, displayed black and white photographs of the portraits,
along with books by and about the subjects of the portraits. Media coverage of the exhibition noted the impact of these efforts as viewers appreciated
the accessibility of such displays and could adopt similar formats for their own schools,
churches and so on. The report for the End Tbilisi Police Crisis magazine saw them as a more enduring means of effecting change,
where as, quote, the portraits in all their glory of colour and vitality would only be there for a little while.
And amongst the books included in this display was Alan then Marks Germinal Anthology, The New Negro.
And as noted by the reviewer, interventions such as this Friday, continuous and immediate charge to recognise, quote,
the beauty of human dignity and worth that common good may be found for all men, no matter what their race or creed, unquote.
Each form of reproduction removed varies from the experience of the unique characteristics of the paintings,
altering their impact in terms of scale, colour and material.
Yet despite losing aspects of the physical aura,
the resulting images increase the potential for the dialectical process of value for Musha transformation.
In short, the portraits increased circulation and shared a network of.
Resources sought after by organisations and individuals who believed in the portrait's
ability to educate and effect social change within the foundation's archives.
There are numerous requests from a broad range of institutions and persons seeking materials and advice on how to best case,
engage in interracial and intercultural work.
A librarian from Wesley College, the director of California County Schools and a minister from St. Paul's Methodist Church and BOA's,
Alabama, are amongst those who contacted the foundation.
Throughout the exhibition's tenure, many great school teachers wrote the foundation, seeking curriculum materials to create units such as neighbours,
all that sought to integrate cultural pluralism into student's understanding of American national identity.
Each request received a lengthy response, some complimentary materials and brochures on additional resources available for a nominal fee.
Beyond the reviews of the exhibition, these requests testified to the impact of the portraits into their role that for the better or worse,
the Harmony Foundation played in generating the art historian Mary Kalo calls an overt cultural racialism.
In order to generate community engagement and social exchange around the portraits,
the Hohmann Foundation relied upon the artist travel with the exhibition, offering tours and speaking on Starner accomplishments of the sitters.
Because of her responsibilities as the director of the Art Department at Cheyney University and then later illness and death in 1948,
Laura we're wearing was unable to travel with the exhibition. This necessitated the hiring of another African-American spokesperson,
Bella Taylor McKnight, the executive secretary of the Cleveland branch of the end.
WCP was tasked with, quote, promoting this exhibit as a springboard for a broad range of community adjustment along interracial lines.
Quote, in her letter of introduction, Formic, Brady Brady's stretched the objectives of the exhibition to position the portraits as, quote,
showing the country what we meant by achievement, dignity,
intellectual calibre and all the fine qualities we desire in high grade American leadership.
For Brady, McKnight's racial identity,
institutional affiliation and cultural capital could facilitate the kind of what she called community adjustment
required to recognise the Americans who in fact were leading the nation under McKnight's stewardship.
The exhibition continued to travel, and its programme evolved and expanded.
Referring to herself as the exhibition's field representative, McKnight booked the exhibition, gave gallery talks and provided educational materials.
One of her first acts was to synthesise contemporary interracial literature into a coherent press release that could be shared with potential venues.
McKnight retained many of the sources that she consulted, including an interracial primer written by Bayard Rustin,
who organised the 1941 March on Washington with Labour organiser A.
Philip Randolph, published in 1943. The Interracial Primer How You Can Help Relieve Tension Between Negroes and Whites provides insight as to the
perspectives that influenced and inspired with night's work focussing on abolishing racism and segregation.
Reston addresses a white audience providing a wide range of recommendations on organising boycotts,
improving education, increasing employment and housing opportunities.
He also advises that concerned citizens could present local schools with quotes and pictures of outstanding American Negroes in court and
ensure that they are included in the corridors and classrooms where portraits of contributors to American cultures would be typically found.
The recommendation is accompanied by an illustration that depicts two little girls,
one white and one black holding hands and regarding portraits of African-Americans,
a suggestive foreshadowing of the staging that would become portraits of outstanding Americans of Negro origin.
Perhaps, though, the most telling response to ignite efforts comes in the form of testimonials from white students.
Develop this high school where McKnight addressed a packed auditorium as part of an outreach programming.
While the exhibition was on display at the Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio.
Their comments, when coupled with the media coverage that emphasised her charm and social grace,
make it apparent that ignites presence itself was critical to the engagement with the exhibition as she was perceived as its living embodiment.
One student wrote that the knight herself was an exemplar, appreciating, quote,
that she got across the great things the Negro race has accomplished for the good of our country.
Quote, The student goes on to assess McKnight's performance, noting that, quote,
She had good poise and she was dressed, stylish, and hence she could talk and keep you interested.
And though the students tone remains respectful, perhaps maybe even admiring her evaluative gaze,
Rhee Centre's whiteness as the arbiter to whom civil rights should or should not be extended.
Several other students expressed that their generation would fight against the injustice of segregation.
As McKnight not only pointed out, the failure of the United States to realise the promise of democracy,
but also the inequities that African-Americans face in healthcare and in education.
Even though there is no doubt through McKnight's efforts, the exhibition became a socially and historically connecting experience.
There's much more that I would like to say and consider about these portraits.
But in the interest of time, I need to conclude and I want to leave you with a provocative comparison.
On the left, you have a staged press photo of Reno with a racially mixed group of schoolchildren regarding the portrait of Jeanne Matilda Bolden,
who became the first black woman to be appointed a judgeship in the domestic relations court of a New York City.
At the left. At the right. You have Ben Hines now viral photograph of Parker Currie regarding the portrait of Michelle Lavone Robinson.
Obama, the first black woman to become first lady.
At the beginning, this lecture, I referred to Mrs. Obama's insistence on future reality,
the awareness of interconnectivity and the possibility of the portrait to inspire.
Though the comparison is by no means parallel, both images speak to the power of portraiture,
its impact on her youth and the urgency to affect change.
Thank you so very much for listening. I look forward to your questions and I would now like to invite Professor Jeff buckin to enjoin join.
Thank you so much, Amy. I have to say that listening to today's lecture.
But the last the whole four of elections,
that's kind of refreshing to see you addressing directly the relationship of race and portraiture at a time when this issue is, of course,
at the forefront of world debates, a kind of reminder that art history and the kind of skills that art historians
develop actually do have interesting and useful things to offer to society at large.
So thank you. If nothing else, for that reminder. A few interesting questions, Amy.
Just on this lecture, somebody is asked, how exactly would these portraits commissioned?
How were the painters chosen? How were the subjects chosen? And how were the two matched up?
So there are a couple circumstances that occurred for this to take place, first and foremost.
We'll start with Laura, where they're wearing. She actually was already recognised by the Harman Foundation and had been awarded for some of her work.
The Harman Foundation in the 30s had annual exhibitions and they gave out annual prises and you could get a gold medal and a financial contribution.
So the Harvard Foundation was already aware of the portraiture and the work that Waring was creating.
And she seemed like a natural fit. She was really interested in doing portraits of her contemporaries and then also with her teaching possibilities.
There was, you know, a lot of activity that I think the foundation found very attractive in the work for Betty Gates.
You know, she was recruited. She actually was to working as a portraitist and she meets Brady.
And then the two of them connect and they wanted to deliberately bring together a white woman and an African-American woman.
So this idea that they were going to go back and forth between the two of them was really important to the idea.
As they said in the lecture,
the commissions were selected by Brady and Lock and drawn from either the awards that the Harmon Foundation had already recognised for
people who have contributed or from some of the other associations that likewise were devoted to achieving civil rights like the NWC Kate.
And were the subjects reimbursed for their time or did they volunteer their time, so to speak, their bodies?
Their subjects were not reimbursed. They definitely were giving themselves over in terms of their likeness in the letters of exchange.
When, again, the commissions are being set up. There is a kind of language discussion of taking pride in.
Likewise, it will be an honour and in your portrait will travel.
And for the most part, too, it should be known that both Reno and Waring worked from photographs.
So in the book I do some comparisons between what you saw.
It was done a few occasions where there were live settings, but for the most part, the requests did not demand too much from the singer's time.
And did anybody declined to be painted? I'm not sure that's a really interesting.
I have not come across that in any of the correspondence.
It's quite, quite copious. So that would be an interesting question.
I was wondering if there was any evidence of response from the suitors themselves.
I mean, you gave us a bit of a sense of Locke's position on portraiture in general,
but do we have any direct evidence that they liked or dislike the way they were portrayed?
There is one example actually comes from Marian Anderson, the opera singer.
She's not like Laura, where Waring's portrayal of her and insisted that Betty Grace, you know, do a different version of her portrayal.
So and that's actually at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, because a few examples are from Waring's work.
I wanted to make sure that I used her work. And I also find it very evocative.
And I mean, you showed us a selection, but quite how many portraits were there and in all.
So things get a little bit unclear at a certain point.
Overall, I think that I've counted about 54 portraits were created under the auspices of this exhibition.
Some of them, however, were actually then purchased from different organisations.
The artist also made a couple copies of them. So there are definitely some kind of ships that are part of this exhibitions history.
I mean, I was just wondering, because, I mean, you mentioned Marian Anderson, that Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson.
I mean, what are notable figures not included for one reason or another.
Right. So Paul Robeson was included.
But for the most part, you'll see that the subjects that were selected were not really largely coming from the arts.
And again, I think we get into that question of respectability politics, that if those that were coming from education, from government policies,
those that were seen as, you know, very politically active, were more that the preferred subjects for for this exhibition.
And did you yourself regard any one of these portraits as more accomplished, more notable, more effective than others in the book?
I spent a lot of time with Laura Wheeler Waring's piece that she did on James Weldon Johnson,
especially the very evocative background that she painted there and making reference to some of his writings.
I think it's really quite a moving in interesting way to approach that question between the exterior and interior ourselves.
Yeah. Now, I'm interested in how this lecture opens up into the others question of portraiture as a kind of vehicle or aid or a vehicle,
an agent for social change. Do you consider this exhibition to have been successful in that regard,
or is there any evidence in the record of the people who organised it, thinking of it as being successful,
given that we're talking about a period in which African-Americans basically had no civil rights and
still didn't get them for perhaps another 20 years or so with the passing of Brown versus Board in 1954?
The Hybrid Foundation declared that the exhibition had, in fact been successful and Newling no longer needed to tour.
And so they brought the paintings back and put them in storage where they stayed until the foundation closed down in the early 1960s.
The portraits then were offered up to the newly founded National Portrait Gallery.
And there was some debate as to whether they would be accepted or not. Some of their works are people found really compelling.
Others, they felt, were more sociological in nature and not really commendable.
So this in itself is quite telling as to that question of who was seen as a
proper subject and especially to be venerated in this newly established museum.
That was really focussed on collecting images of people who had already died and who had given,
in some people's mind over themselves over to the pursuit of democracy.
So it's a telling moment, to say the least, when I think about these portraits in regards to the arc of the book.
One of the things that I am constantly trying to work through and to think about the kind of advocacy of portraiture is how we are taught to look,
you know, and how that inculcation comes to us, how our values are shifted and how they can be impacted by a work of art.
And I would like to think that if you have a memorable experience,
something that is shared and confirmed, not just once, but again and again and again,
it does have an impact on how you think or how you look at yourself and others and what your expectations are that looking could be.
I see this especially in regards to contemporary artists and how they are using the portrait to kind of effect this change.
Not only can do Whiley, obviously, but an image child.
But I'm also thinking about, you know, my colleague who has long worked at this downward bay.
I think about the efficacy of Carry Me wins titles for Kerry, James Marshall McLuhan, Thomas.
There's just a tremendous amount of individuals who are trying to use this figurative language to,
again, rethink representation around the ideas of race and identity and gender sexuality.
I think it's really has a charge to it. I mean, it's interesting to hear you talk about that,
because one of the tensions that I was sort of aware of during the talk was this dynamic between,
I don't know what you call it, conformism,
integration ism and avant garde or contestation between black subjects being encouraged even by their own leaders,
to conform to abortion proper boards, while a respectable portrait conventions and then framing the lectures with, say,
wireless portrait of Barack Obama, which, you know, I mean that as an artist notoriously considered to have an African-American aesthetic.
And within the tradition of presidential portraiture,
that portrait contests that tradition by providing are quite different, not just in the sense that.
The subject is black. But even the way it's painted is quite distinctive.
I mean, do you see that tension yourself between what's called conformity and contestation?
Is that the choice that African-Americans have to face?
I think that there's a tension of aesthetic that was quite purposeful in regards to Brady and Locks thinking.
So if they wanted to have this, like, revolutionary radical shift in people's thinking,
they wanted to use a language that people were already familiar with.
And it's not so much that the subjects were trying to conform to it.
Instead of I think about it the other way, think about it as the audience member who never before has considered black subject hood.
And now here it is right in front of you. And so how do you conceive this?
And instead, if your daily diet of visual imagery of African-Americans is based on stereotype, a character.
That's how you see things normally. So this was actually a very different radical gays to utilise that kind of visual language.
And if we think about why work as well, remember, he's still using that language.
I mean, definitely, obviously, he collapsed and and ground. He's got so many internal dynamic innovations, as does Amy Sherrod,
especially in terms of her use of the Garci and flattening against the figure as well in terms of space.
But I think that, again, both of them are working on the conventions of portraiture,
the presentation of a presence that then we as viewers enter into negotiation with.
And I think that that's what kind of is the tie that binds throughout the book.
I'm not just looking at what people would traditionally consider to be a portrait.
Right. We spent a lot of time on visual culture, primers, illustrations and the like.
And what I'm trying to get to is that these are all part of a larger scheme of looking and inform how we evaluate ourselves and others.
And it's this evaluative part that I hope that we can effect some change.
I've had a number of questions sent in. Amy, about the philosophy of Alain Locke.
But maybe we could sum it up. What do you think he would have made of while his portrait of Barack Obama?
I think he would have loved it, by all means. I mean, definitely, as Jeffrey Stewart and many others have shared with us.
Locke loved all kinds of patterns and innovations.
He was quite a dandy himself. And so I think he would really love not only obviously having an African-American president,
but I think the commanding presence and also the intricacy of the design patterns, beauty.
I think all of that would really be inspiring to him. Now, Amy, what about the future for you?
I guess a couple of questions. What the lectures have been sort of tracing a span from the 80s and 90s up into the 1950s.
Is the book in the book? Will you be going up to the near present as well?
And then perhaps your time at Oxford, which I know has been somewhat constrained by current circumstances.
But has that shaped your research or the way you're thinking about your research in any particular way in terms of the book?
I've got a couple options. You have to rewrite my introduction. Which one is always off to do it?
Because when you propose the book tunes and takes different. You're right.
Last I find. Exactly. So, you know, for the proposal, I needed to get it out there first.
I need to rewrite that. And very likely I might want to frame it within this contemporary moment.
We don't know that I would necessarily use the Obama portraits for that.
This worked for this lecture context, but I would definitely want to give some thought to how to bring it into a discourse around our
contemporary selves and have the value of the past to be reflective in the work that we need to do.
Now in regards to being here. Oxford. It really just afforded the chance to dig in intellectually.
There was such a pleasure to be able to teach a course that was exclusively focussed on portraiture of Mark with a series
of graduate students who were quite critical and keen to consider these same issues about representation and identity.
Right. Well, I'm hoping we will leave a mark on you as you have left a mark on us.
We're coming to the end of our time.
So let me just first thank everybody who's been watching and listening and especially those that are sending questions.
I'm sorry we couldn't get to all of them. But I glad we got to at least some of them.
But most importantly, let me thank Amy and Mooney, speaker for today and out for our last four elections.
Amy, it's been an extremely thought provoking series and so timely,
it's sort of uncanny how you have addressed a topic that is so central to contemporary debate.
So thank you so much for leaving thoughts behind you. I think we'll be debating the kind of things you've been presenting for some time to come.
And let me thank also on your behalf and on my behalf or the team at Torch that have made this series possible.
We're very grateful for your assistance. And thank you finally to all the viewers at home for watching.
We look forward to seeing you again when the next terror foundation lectures are presented.
Thank you.