The Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis has acquired a watercolor piece by Florida painter Dean Mitchell. The museum unveiled the work in February, during Black History Month, as it celebrated the historical significance of the work and its artist.
The piece, For Freedom, shows a Black soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, “standing at attention with his rifle and gazing resolutely forward,” the museum notes. Mitchell painted the work in 2020 and used a Kansas-based Civil War re-enactor as a model.
“African Americans are centrally important to the 19th-century history of the American West, but were largely unrepresented in artworks created at the time. In recent years, the Eiteljorg Museum has actively acquired art reflecting diversity to add to its Western art collections,” Eiteljorg president and CEO John Vanausdall says. “Dean Mitchell’s outstanding painting speaks to the struggle for African American freedom, and we are very pleased that through a generous gift, we are able to share this compelling artwork with museum guests.”
Dean Mitchell, For Freedom, watercolor, 30 x 22
Mitchell showed the work during the 2020 Quest for the West exhibition at the museum.Catherine Turner, a long-time patron of the museum, purchased the work and gifted it to the Eiteljorg. For Freedom was on display throughout Black History Month.
The artist has had a string of high-profile acquisitions and sales throughout 2020 and into 2021. For Freedom appeared in a February article in Western Art Collector that looked at the importance of diversity and representation in Western art. Mitchell, who participated in the article, spoke about the need to tell stories from new perspectives, including Black perspectives within the West. “The West is so much to so many of us. Whether it’s Native American communities or Black cowboys, or whatever else—these are the things we shouldn’t hide from,” he said in the feature in the magazine. “Some of these things are tough to talk about, but we need to have better conversations. And I think we’re getting there.”
Calling all Western Art museums! Have a recently acquired painting or sculpture? Email the details to mclawson@westernartcollector.com.
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