McKinley in the Rainbow City
11.25” x 28.25”, 2023
This the most ambitious piece I’ve attempted so far, recreating the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. It was essentially a World’s Fair, envisioned as a coming out party for the United States in the new century as a leader in fields ranging from fine art to manufacturing to space exploration (one attraction was an imaginative carnival ride sending attendees on a trip to the moon a full year before Georges Méliès’ landmark film of the same name). But it was sadly defined by a single event: President William McKinley’s assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. This elevated Teddy Roosevelt to the presidency, which is one of the most consequential events of the 20th century, but also signaled an end to a dark and little-remembered era of America ruled by the robber barons and punctuated by our most overtly imperialistic acts – we essentially conquered the Philippines, Hawaii and Japan – of which McKinley was a major architect. It was also a bloody period where three American presidents were assassinated in just 36 years. When I learned that Buffalo built an entire electrified city (a rarity at the time) for the Exposition, only to demolish it after the project was tarnished by this violent act, it just felt like a really compelling entry point to try to pull together all of these threads that converged at this single point.
11.25” x 28.25”, 2023
This the most ambitious piece I’ve attempted so far, recreating the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. It was essentially a World’s Fair, envisioned as a coming out party for the United States in the new century as a leader in fields ranging from fine art to manufacturing to space exploration (one attraction was an imaginative carnival ride sending attendees on a trip to the moon a full year before Georges Méliès’ landmark film of the same name). But it was sadly defined by a single event: President William McKinley’s assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. This elevated Teddy Roosevelt to the presidency, which is one of the most consequential events of the 20th century, but also signaled an end to a dark and little-remembered era of America ruled by the robber barons and punctuated by our most overtly imperialistic acts – we essentially conquered the Philippines, Hawaii and Japan – of which McKinley was a major architect. It was also a bloody period where three American presidents were assassinated in just 36 years. When I learned that Buffalo built an entire electrified city (a rarity at the time) for the Exposition, only to demolish it after the project was tarnished by this violent act, it just felt like a really compelling entry point to try to pull together all of these threads that converged at this single point.