An Artist Comments on ART

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There are the many different kinds of things that Duncanson did in order to make a work while living in Cincinnati. Most people are puzzled as to how he did it, how as a light- skinned black person he was able to actually make it go in Cincinnati. Cincinnati was a pretty hot place. A lot of people were able to succeed in cities that were of mixed heritage. Duncanson is doing something in the Mayan painting that a lot of photographers did. Photographers who went to Egypt, to Africa, put lots of photographs in their window and were able to sell them, or travel agents bought them in order to take people there. He painted not only the far-off places, he also painted panthers and animals and various things like that. The painting, as I see it, looks like it came from an illustration. He's working commercially and as a business person, and that perhaps something creatively goes into his other landscape paintings.

Sam Gilliam

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