The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (1 of 7), 1996, printed 2020, inkjet print with sandblasted text on glass in wood frame, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2020.96.1.1

The National Gallery of Art’s recent installation of Untitled (1996, printed 2020) by Carrie Mae Weems alongside The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial by turn of the 20th century American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens is one of several responses by the institution to the debate sparked by the BLM protests. Saint-Gaudens’ bronze relief, produced in 1900, honours the the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first African American regiments formed in the North during the American Civil War. Weems’s work consists of a suite of seven ink-jet prints incorporating historic images and bookended by reproductions of a 1973 photograph by Richard Benson of the soldiers in Saint-Gaudens’ sculpture. Text etched into the glass on the pictures alludes to the history of African Americans since the Civil War and evokes the power of music by including pages from the scores of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” and Miles Davis’s “All Blues,” as well as references to Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” By layering text on top of images by white artists (Saint-Gaudens, Benson, Lee, and Ulmann), Weems centers African American perspectives to construct a nuanced history that speaks of racial pride and resilience, sacrifice and determination. The work is also a plea to God, as the score of “Come Sunday” notes, to “please look down and see my people through.”

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial, 1900, patinated plaster overall (without armature or pedestal): 368.9 x 524.5 x 86.4 cm (145 1/4 x 206 1/2 x 34 in.) overall (with armature & pedestal): 419.1 x 524.5 x 109.2 cm (165 x 206 1/2 x 43 in.) U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park, Cornish, New Hampshire, on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Art

Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s (1848–1907) The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial (1900) is on long-term loan to the National Gallery from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park. The sculpture commemorates the storming of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, a troop of African American soldiers and white officers formed immediately after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Although nearly one-third of the regiment was killed or wounded in the assault, including Shaw himself, the battle was considered by many to be a turning point in the war, and the soldiers were honored for their bravery and dedication to country.

Adjacent to The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial are the names of the more than 200 soldiers who were killed, wounded, captured, or missing following the battle at Fort Wagner. Also on view in this gallery are several examples of the more than 40 portrait heads Saint-Gaudens modeled during the conception of the memorial.