Robert S. Duncanson

Side A: The first African American artist to achieve international acclaim, painter Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872) was born in New York and settled in Cincinnati in 1840. He pursued his artistic career during a time of tremendous racial prejudice and was acknowledged as the “best landscape painter in the West.” Arts patron Nicholas Longworth commissioned murals from Duncanson around 1850 for his home Belmont, now the Taft Museum of Art; these paintings are regarded as one of the finest pre-Civil War domestic decoration schemes in the United States. Sponsored by anti-slavery groups, he traveled widely during the 1860s in Europe. Duncanson rose above oppression to create expressions of African American cultural identity, leading the way for other people of color to pursue careers in the arts. Side B: Same