Four people with black skin are squeezed into a narrow boat on bright, turquoise-colored water that nearly fills this stylized, square painting. All four sides of the unstretched canvas are lined with six gromets spaced along each edge. The boat approaches a carnival-like tunnel near the upper right corner. Cartoon ghosts loom at the tunnel entrance and a translucent, veil-like ghost hovers over the left half of the painting. The horizon comes almost to the top of the canvas, where white clouds float against an azure-blue sky. A long, lemon-yellow line curls back and forth in a tight, curving zigzag pattern that widens out from a tiny sun setting on the horizon. A red cross on a white field floats near the upper left. At the top center, the word “WOW” appears in white letters within a crimson-red, bursting speech bubble with long trailing tendrils, like an exploded firework. Below the boat and against the water to our right, the word “FUN” has been overlaid with a white square so the tall, white letters are barely visible. The words “GREAT AMERICA” appear in a curling banner across the bottom half of the painting.

Kerry James Marshall, Great America, 1994, acrylic and collage on canvas, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2011.20.1

Conversations: Kerry James Marshall and John Singleton Copley

Saturday, December 7, 2024
1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
East Building Auditorium

Talks
In-person
Registration Required

Join us for a series of presentations inspired by Conversations: Kerry James Marshall and John Singleton Copley. This special installation brings together three monumental paintings for a thought-provoking dialogue: Copley’s 18th-century canvas Watson and the Shark and Marshall’s two 20th-century works Great America and Voyager. These all maritime-themed paintings address the violent history of the transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage, the forced journey of enslaved people across the Atlantic.

Renowned scholar and curator Bridget R. Cooks and award-winning graphic novelist John Jennings, author of comics including Marvel's Silver Surfer: Ghost Light, begin the symposium by discussing the journey of the Black hero in visual art. Presentations by Nika Elder, Mark Godfrey, and Alysha M. Page share current research on Copley, Marshall, and Black sailors in 18th century, respectively. National Gallery curators Charles Brock and James Meyer will give introductions and gather in the installation for questions after the symposium.

1:00-2:00pm
Keynote Address: Bridget R. Cooks and John Jennings, Voyage of the Black Superhero
New York Times Best Seller, Marvel writer, media studies professor, and graphic artist John Jennings and art historian Bridget R. Cooks will discuss the persistence of the Black superhero in American comics and art. Taking Conversations: Kerry James Marshall and John Singleton Copley as a point of departure, these scholars will address the visibility of Black protagonists on their journeys for survival.

2:00-2:30pm
Nika Elder, Blood in the Water: John Singleton Copley and History Painting
Nika Elder explains Anglo-American artist John Singleton Copley’s (1738-1815) considered decision to include a Black figure in Watson and the Shark and, thereby, reveals the racial politics of history painting in the British tradition.

2:30-3:00pm
Alysha M. Page, Centering the Black Soldier in Copley's "Watson and the Shark"
Alysha M. Page, African American History Curator in the Office of Historic Alexandria, Virgina, recenters the Black sailor in Copley’s Watson and the Shark, using his portrayal to expose his fraught life in the 18th century where freedom and bondage coexisted. Set in Havana Harbor, a hub for transatlantic slave trade, the painting captures America's moral conflict on the eve of the War for Independence: a fight for liberty built on the foundation of slavery.

3:00-3:30pm
Mark Godfrey, Spirits and Symbols: Kerry James Marshall's “Great America”
Independent curator and art historian Mark Godfrey situates Marshall’s Great America in the context of famous western paintings such as Copley’s Watson and the Shark, as well as the interest that many African American cultural figures shared in the 1980-1990s in African and African diasporic religions and symbols. These symbols occur in Great America and related works, such as the National Gallery’s Voyager, the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Baptist, as well as Plunge and Terra Incognita, both in private collections. Godfrey refers to Marshall’s encounter with African religions in Los Angeles, to Robert Farris Thompson’s scholarship, and to Marshall’s work on Julie Dash’s film Daughters of the Dust and Haile Gerima’s Sankofa.

Made possible by a grant from the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Sign-language interpreters and guides for visitors who are blind or have low vision are available for programs. Please call (202) 842-6905 or email [email protected] three weeks in advance for an appointment. Learn more about accessibility.