Was William T. Trego America’s Greatest Disabled Artist?

One of the biggest problems with lists is that with lists come labels. A list of African-American artists or women artists already sets them up as different (and perhaps less, somehow) than artists on another list. But sometimes lists also celebrate difference and how individuals overcome challenges and thrive in a society that can be less than totally accepting. Few people know the name of the disabled 19^th century American artist William T. Trego, even though one of his paintings, The March to Valley Forge, December 16, 1777, remains a staple of American history textbooks looking to illustrate one of the great turning points of the American Revolutionary War. In So Bravely and So Well: The Life and Art of William T. Trego by Joseph P. Eckhardt, we learn Trego’s remarkable tale of overcoming the effects of childhood polio, which left his hands paralyzed, to attend art school and even study in Paris in his pursuit of a career as a painter, all during an era when the physically disabled were perceived as mentally disabled, too, and in which the idea of accessibility for all remained nearly a century in the future. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Was William T. Trego America’s Greatest Disabled Artist?"

[Image: William T. Trego (1858-1909), The Color Guard (French Dragoons Charging), 1890, oil on canvas, H. 35 x W. 45.75 inches, West Point Museum, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.]

[Many thanks to the James A. Michener Art Museum for the image above and to the University of Pennsylvania Press for providing me with a review copy of So Bravely and So Well: The Life and Art of William T. Trego by Joseph P. Eckhardt.]

Why Van Gogh Is Ready for His Close Up

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up,” says washed-up silent film star Norma Desmond in the final scene of Billy Wilder’s unforgettable 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. Gloria Swanson caps off her Oscar-nominated performance as Norma by walking into the camera’s lens and revealing in that final close up the full extent of her sick and tortured mind. In Van Gogh: Up Close, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 6, 2012, Vincent Van Gogh seems finally ready for his close up, too, but with an opposite effect. The mad, sad, and dangerous to know Vincent seen through the telephoto lens of legend gives way here to a clear-eyed view of an intensely focused artist who, despite personal difficulties, achieved greatness in art and communed intimately with nature in a way not only artistically revolutionary, but also therapeutic for himself and others. “All right, art loving public,” Van Gogh: Up Close shouts, “I’m ready for my close-up.” Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why Van Gogh Is Ready for His Close Up."

[Image: Almond Blossom (detail), 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853-1890. Oil on canvas, 28 15/16 x 36 1/4 inches (73.5 x 92 cm). Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.]

[Many thanks to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the image above from, a review copy of the catalog to, an invitation to the press preview for, and other press materials related to Van Gogh: Up Close, which runs at the museum through May 6, 2012.]