My column this week looks at the heated controversy that surrounded The Public Theater‘s recent staging of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park in New York.  Did it encourage assassination?  Read the whole thing HERE.

The US presidency is much on people’s minds these days, to put it mildly, and there’s a lot of talk about what kind of image the current occupant of that office is putting forward. While Trump may be a different style of President in many ways, what really isn’t new is the interest in how the public image of the President shapes our attitude toward the job he holds.

As I’ve listened to arguments about the degree to which Trump is changing how we think of the presidency, I’ve been rereading an interesting book entitled The Painter’s Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art by historian Hugh Howard. In it, he tells the story of the many times George Washington posed for painters over the course of his public life and the ways in which the resulting portraits influenced how people thought of Washington himself and, ultimately, the curious new office which he was the first to occupy.

Many great artists painted pictures of Washington over the course of his life, and doing so (or at least doing so well) contributed significantly to their fame rising alongside his. Charles Willson Peale, his son Rembrandt Peale, John Trumbull, and French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon are just some of the accomplished artists who played a part in shaping the image of the man who was known as the “Father of his Country” long before he became its first President. The senior Peale first painted Washington’s portrait in 1772, three years before the Revolution broke out and he was tapped to be Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. Howard notes that “beyond the few who had seen the man in person, most of those who had begun proudly to call themselves Americans became acquainted with George Washington through Mr. Peale’s eyes.”

Gilbert Stuart’s portraits, however, are perhaps the ones with which we’re most familiar today; certainly one in particular is. In 1796, he began working on a portrait of Washington that remained unfinished a year later except for the head. But by that point, most who saw it were in agreement that Stuart had captured something significant even in the small portion he had thus far completed. It became known as The Athenaeum portrait (so labeled because it went to the Boston Athenaeum after Stuart’s death) and is the basis for, among other things, Washington’s likeness on the one-dollar bill. In 1823, art critic John Neal commented that if “a better likeness of him were shown to us, we should reject it,” because by then this image had become the universally acclaimed one.

As famous as these paintings would someday be, a relatively small number of people saw them in the first century of their existence. As he explains in his book Popular Images of the Presidency, the eminent historian of the early republic Noble Cunningham points out that “contemporaries did not often view the oil portraits painted from life by accomplished artists. Most Americans gained their impressions of the presidents from engraved prints and later—and more widely—from popular lithographs.” The works of Stuart, Peale, and other artists of greater or lesser ability formed the basis for thousands of inexpensive reproductions that circulated among everyday people.

Cunningham titles the opening chapter in his book “The Presdency Enshrined” and indeed this is what Washington’s ubiquitous image did in the minds of Americans. The respect and devotion people felt for Washington transferred to the office which he pioneered, and showed for the first (but not last) time how a personal public image can affect our attitude toward the the government itself.

Originally published in the Waco Tribune-Herald, May 25, 2017

General George Washington Resigning his Commission, John Trumbull, c.1817-1824, oil on canvas, United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, DC.

My column this week ponders why so many artists are involved with what we would consider to be social activism.  Read the whole thing HERE in this week’s Waco Tribune-Herald.

If you’re looking for cattle, we’ve got them. And cowboys on horseback, too, all larger than life and in bronze. Even though the “Branding the Brazos” sculpture installation in Indian Springs Park is not quite complete, it’s well on its way to being one of the most evocative and popular pieces of public art in Texas. The work of sculptor Robert Summers, it celebrates Waco’s history as a way point on the famous Chisholm Trail. It’s rewarding for arts backers in Waco to see how many people are coming to see it, and how they interact with it when they do.

We’re still awaiting similar artistic commemoration of individuals. Cultural Arts of Waco is hard at work raising funds for what will someday be an impressive memorial to US Navy sailor Doris Miller across the river from the cattle drive.

But another one of our fellow citizens deserves recognition. In contrast to Miller, Waco native Jules Bledsoe was famous in the world of the arts, and a sculpture of him would be a fitting and proper addition to Indian Springs Park. A major figure in American music, Bledsoe was the first black American to sing with a major opera company, the first to become a regular performer on Broadway, and he made a lasting mark on American musical theater. A handful of people in Waco know his story, but there should be more.

Jules Bledsoe was born in Waco at the end of the 1890s, although there’s some confusion about the exact date. He wanted to be a doctor and after graduating from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas enrolled at Columbia University medical school in New York City.

But he had gift for music and a lush baritone, and soon made it his career. He gave his debut recital in 1924, performing works by Bach, Handel and Brahms in the same hall in which George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” had its world premier about the same time. From there he got a part in “Deep River,” an opera set in 1835 New Orleans which closed after a short run.

He’s best known for his role in “Show Boat,” a musical based on a novel by Edna Ferber, who also wrote, among other things, “Giant.” “Show Boat” opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre just after Christmas in 1927 and played for 572 performances. In its first review of the play, the New York Times singled out Bledsoe’s performance as “remarkably effective.” It was one of the biggest hits of the decade, and Bledsoe’s performance of “Old Man River” became a Broadway favorite.

In the following years he sang with major symphony orchestras and opera companies on both sides of the Atlantic. He died in Hollywood in 1943 pursuing a movie career and is buried in Waco.

Other cities have honored similar native sons with statues. There’s one of Count Basie in his hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey. There are statues of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in Washington, DC and New Orleans, respectively. Bledsoe doesn’t rank with them in American musical history, but he’s pretty high up there.

Yes, we have the Bledsoe-Miller YMCA, and a bust of Bledsoe in the old Hippodrome. But a sculpture in Indian Springs Park would introduce him to countless numbers of people who will come to the park to see the cattle drive piece. It would illuminate the cultural history of Waco as the cowboys show its western heritage, and honor a major artist of the 20^th century. And it would be a fitting piece of public art of which the city could be proud.

From the Waco Tribune-Herald, May 29, 2014