"The image of Paul Revere, for instance, is an homage to John Singleton Copley's painting of the silversmith and Patriot, which hangs in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Other figures will be less familiar. Standing beside George Washington is a man he enslaved. Like thousands of enslaved people, Harry Washington abandoned the plantation when the war began and fought for Great Britain. No image of this Washington survives. For such figures, McKendry imagined their visages, taking cues from written descriptions when possible."
"No occasion would have brought all of these people together in the same room (certainly, it is difficult to imagine King George in the same room as the other George). They represent different sides of the war, of the period's political ferment, and of early American society itself. One figure existed only in a work of fiction. But together they convey the ambition of this special issue: to capture the Revolutionary Era in all of its complexity, contradictions, and ingenuity."
Joe McKendry painted a tableau that gathers prominent and obscure Revolutionary-era figures into a single composition. Some likenesses are drawn from historical portraiture—Paul Revere draws on John Singleton Copley—while others were imagined when no image survives. The composition places enslaved individuals alongside founding figures, noting that Harry Washington escaped to fight for Britain. The figures span political, military, and social roles, include one fictional character, and intentionally juxtapose opposing sides. The tableau seeks to convey the era’s complexity, contradictions, political ferment, and inventive energies.
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