Photo by Ron Wyatt
Mario Moore, The Great Reckoning, 2020–21. Lent by The Popkin Family. © Mario Moore. Image courtesy Arthur Roger Gallery. Photo: Michael Smith
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Photo by Ron Wyatt
Artist Mario Moore, former Hodder Fellow in residence from 2018-20 and visiting lecturer in visual arts at the Lewis Center, returned to campus on Thursday for a celebration of the installation of his painting The Great Reckoning in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. The celebration included an artist’s talk by Moore.
The work, which was recently installed in the lobby of Robertson Hall, depicts Moore’s ancestor, Thomas Moore, a Black Union Army soldier who fought in the Civil War, as he distances himself from a rearing white horse. A parchment inscribed with Frederick Douglass’s 1863 speech urging Black men to take up arms in service of the Union lays at the soldier’s feet, a counterpart to the Confederate flag under the horse’s hooves. With these dueling symbols, Moore invites viewers to consider the contested histories that link past and present.
