Mayan Ruins

About the Art

Duncanson was the first African American artist to gain national and international recognition for his landscape, portrait and still-life paintings. Born in New York and raised in Canada, by 1841 he lived with his mother north of Cincinnati in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. Largely self-taught, he was more broadly accepted as an artist in Cincinnati than in older eastern cities. Around the time this painting was made, Duncanson had a major commission to paint landscape panels for the home of Nicholas Longworth (home today of the Taft Museum). Inspired by an illustrated book of Central American explorations rather than nature, this work is unusual for Duncanson.

FEATURED IMAGE
Robert Seldon Duncanson (American, 1821–1872), Mayan Ruins, Yucatan, 1848, oil on canvas, 14 x 20 inches (35.6 x 50.8 cm). Museum purchase with funds provided by the Daniel Blau Endowment Fund, 1984.105