Online Lecture: The Life and Practice of Moses Williams

Transcript of event

Join us for an online lunchtime lecture that features presentations from preeminent early American art scholar Dr. Carol Soltis and acclaimed silhouette artist Lauren Muney as they explore the artistry and history of 19th-century African American artist Moses Williams, once enslaved by The Peale family. Soltis and Muney will join in for a live Q&A after the pre-recorded presentations to answer questions from Zoom audience members.

Presentation 1: Moses Williams: a Technical View by Lauren Muney

In the early 1800s, Moses Williams worked as a “Cutter of Profiles” for almost 30 years, when the average profile-maker worked only four or five years. Why did tens of thousands of people buy his profiles? What made his work so special during a time when most citizens wouldn’t buy much from a mixed-race artist? The secrets and beauty of Moses’ skills are finally revealed.

Lauren Muney has been working in the traditional portrait form of scissor-cut profiles and silhouettes for almost 17 years. She works at public, corporate, and community events, museums, and public art across the globe. You may have seen her at the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, New York Design Center, London’s former Old War Office, or countless other locations. She also created the Peale Faces profiles in the Peale Museum, portraiting almost 300 people all across Baltimore. She recently completed a research fellowship in experimental archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and also learned to make scissors in Sheffield, England.

Presentation 2: A Closer Look at Moses Williams Life and Art by Dr. Carol Eaton Soltis

Carol E. Soltis holds an A.B. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006, she joined the museum to research and display Robert L. McNeil, Jr.’s gift of his Peale Collection. Her book, The Art of the Peales: Adaptations and Innovations (Yale University Press) documents PMA’s now unparalleled Peale Collection, and in 2018 was cited by the Athenaeum of Philadelphia as an “Outstanding Work of Non-Fiction by a Philadelphia Author.” Previously her exhibition and catalogue, Rembrandt Peale, A Life in the Arts (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) led to six years with the Peale Family Papers at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, where she assembled a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work, co-curated the exhibition, In Pursuit of Fame, Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860, and contributed to its catalogue (1992). Her numerous articles and essays on the Peales include brief biographies for the French website AWARE (Archives of Women Artists Research & Exhibitions).

With conservator, Emily McDonald-Korth, she established the authenticity and reconstructed the provenance of Charles Willson Peale’s Washington at Princeton (Residence, American Ambassador, Paris) for the U.S. Department of State. She also oversees PMA’s American portrait miniatures and their display. Beyond, PMA, she is a contributor to the digital database, Reconstructing Philadelphia’s Earliest Museums, documenting the contents of the museums of Pierre Eugène Du Simitière and Charles Willson Peale. She has written on a variety of topics and artists in 18th and 19th century American art and in 2014, co-curated Thomas Sully, Painted Performance and co-authored its catalogue (Yale University Press). A former member of the Board of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, she is an Emerita Board member of the Library Company of Philadelphia.