acquired<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0617_mfa-amart-6.jpg\")
A large clay jar by enslaved artist David Drake stands on display by Paul Revere’s \u201cLiberty Bowl\u201d at the MFA in Boston. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n
The museum has worked to diversify its perspectives since the massive Art of the Americas wing debuted in 2010. Senior curator of American paintings Erica Hirshler pointed to other additions from the Spanish Americas, the Caribbean and contemporary indigenous artists.<\/p>\n
Then Hirshler walked over to a provocative display built around the only object that couldn\u2019t be moved \u2014 because it\u2019s enormous. At 12 feet tall and 17 feet wide, Thomas Sully\u2019s \u201cThe Passage of the Delaware\u201d occupies an entire wall and is the largest painting on display in the museum. It depicts a triumphant George Washington leading a surprise attack during the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe event happened in 1776, and this painting was made in 1819,\u201d Hirshler said. \u201cSo it is a look backward \u2014 it is an attempt to create an American history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sully\u2019s heroic vision of Washington dominates the room. Hirshler described how he\u2019s at the center, more brightly lit than anybody else, \u201cand, of course, he’s riding a white horse.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0617_mfa-amart-2.jpg\")
George Washington crossing the Delaware in the painting by Thomas Sully. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n
But a number of paradoxes live within the portrait. So the curators decided to contrast the painting\u2019s mythic story with some darker truths about the founding father\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is also complicated by the fact that he held enslaved people working on his plantation, and he also ordered General Sullivan to decimate many, many towns in upstate New York that were part of the Mohawk nation,\u201d Hirshler said.<\/p>\n
That story is revealed through a newly-acquired, stainless steel bust of Washington by contemporary Native American artist Alan Michelson. Its title is \u201cHan\u00f6daga:yas (Town Destroyer): Reflect,\u201d and Michelson himself is a Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River.<\/p>\n
![\"Alan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0617_mfa-amart-3.jpg\")
Alan Michelson’s bust of George Washington. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n
The artist explained how his highly-polished, life-sized head acts like a mirror. \u201cSo everybody has to face themselves in this hallowed founder’s face,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Michelson noted how the Cherokee Trail of Tears is infamous \u2014 but his ancestors\u2019 tragedy is largely unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sullivan campaign was one of the biggest operations of the American Revolution, and it was a scorched earth campaign that destroyed 40 Haudenosaunee villages, towns, farms, orchards,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was really an attack on the entire infrastructure of Haudenosaunee life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington also benefited personally from that violent dispossession of land.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody thinks of him as a very successful land speculator,\u201d Michelson continued. \u201cHe inherited a 180-acre farm when he was eleven, and when he died in 1799 he had accumulated over 45,000 acres of what had been native land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Michelson made clear his bust is not an “I hate Washington” work. He hopes it reflects how different truths can coexist without cancelling each other out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the ironies of the founding of the United States is that American independence attacked Native independence,\u201d Michelson said. \u201cSo, I think these revised histories \u2014 all that’s taking place in that room \u2014 is going to be a real challenge for people, and I think it’s a healthy one.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the goal of the re-installation, said MFA director Pierre Terjanian. Standing in the galleries he also acknowledged an institutional challenge that\u2019s palpable in the space. The associate curator of Native American art who was instrumental in bringing more indigenous voices to the MFA was among 33 employees laid off in January.<\/p>\n
According to Terjanian, the difficult decisions were driven by finances. But he sees how the optics could look to critics who say the cuts targeted diversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do understand that the connections we build with the communities have been strained with the loss of expertise and the connections have been forged by individual curators,\u201d Terjanian said. \u201cAnd we understand we have some work to do to rebuild trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0617_mfa-amart-5.jpg\")
John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark” at the MFA in Boston. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n
Terjanian hopes the updated galleries represent a step forward and said former Native American curator Marina Tyquiengco\u2019s work lives on in these rooms.<\/p>\n
Artist Alan Michelson feels the loss. He said he supports museums hiring and keeping Native American curators. At the same time he\u2019s also honored his bust of George Washington has a permanent place in the MFA\u2019s collection and the re-examined galleries.<\/p>\n
Michelson believes the nation\u2019s semiquincentennial is an opportunity to imagine the founding of the United States not just as something that happened 250 years ago, \u201cbut as an ongoing project in which we all have a real stake, and in which we participate every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 18th century Art of the Americas galleries open to the public on Friday, June 19. Admission is free to Massachusetts residents as part of the MFA\u2019s Juneteenth celebrations and a two-day \u201cAmerica at 250\u201d weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands of visitors encounter American history each year at the Museum of Fine Arts as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-342622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Gilbert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0617_mfa-amart-1.jpg\")
Gilbert Stuart\u2019s unfinished portrait of George Washington at the MFA in Boston. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n