Description

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Tracing the revolutionary creation of what art historian Stephen Eisenman calls "a highly individualized, noble portrait of an African man," Art of the Amistad and The Portrait of Cinqu is built around visual and material culture, and thus does not use images merely as illustration, but tells its story through the wide range of images and materials presented. While the Portrait of Cinqu seems to sit quietly behind Plexiglass at a local history museum, the impact of this 175-year old painting is palpable; very few portraits from the 19th century--let alone a portrait of a black man--remain a relevant part of culture as the Portrait of Cinqu continues to be today.
Art of the Amistad the Portrait of Cinqu is about the art and artifacts that continue to inform and inspire our understanding of transatlantic history--a journey 175 years in the making.

About the Author

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Laura A. Macaluso was born in Norwalk, Connecticut and currently resides in Lynchburg, Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway. She has taught art history, worked and lived at historic sites and written about cultural heritage (specifically museum collections, monuments and murals) for twenty years. She was awarded a Fulbright in 2008-2009 to work at the National Museum in Swaziland in southern Africa, and returned in 2010 under a cultural heritage preservation grant from the State Department. Recent projects include the exhibit "An Artist at War: Deane Keller, New Haven's Monuments Man" and the accompanying article in the Winter 2014/2015 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine. She is completing her doctoral dissertation which explores the relationship between art and city identity in the Humanities/Cultural and Historic Preservation departments at Salve Regina University (Newport, RI).