Organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art and The Museum Box, Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) features 15 works on paper by Kara Walker, presented alongside a selection of prints by Winslow Homer that inspired them.

As a young artist, Homer served as a war correspondent for Harper’s Magazine. His compelling drawings of soldiers on the front lines of battle and civilians caught up in the war’s horrors became a visual history of the Civil War, and they were published after the war in the magazine’s 1866 two-volume anthology.

These historic prints represent a starting point for Walker, who revisits them utilizing her signature silhouettes to introduce new elements. She surfaces race and gender-based biases, highlights profound sociopolitical inequalities, and brings to the fore a silenced history of violence that complicate Homer’s initial narrative.

The direct comparison between the original images by Homer and Walker’s reinterpretation of the same material was first undertaken by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2017 and has traveled to several museums across the country.

This comparative exhibition constitutes an important opportunity to revisit the history of the antebellum South and the ensuing Civil War through the contemporary lenses of race, slavery, gender, and politics.

This exhibition is generously supported by Emily Leff in memory of James L Davis, III. Additional support by Benjamin and Karina Kelley.

Please note: The Currier Museum of Art is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.