|
In 1796, working independently rather than under government commission, Edward Savage engraved the print Liberty in the Form of the Goddess of Youth, selling it from his own Columbian Gallery on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. Modest in composition, this allegorical work appealed to a wide public audience. It proved that an independent artist could hand a young republic a meaningful representation of what it hoped to become.
In the years since, American artists have turned that same independence toward harder truths: cartoonists exposed Gilded Age corruption, painters and engravers wrestled with the Civil War and Abolition. Generations later, artists continue to confront racism and other forms of oppression that our republic has yet to resolve. Each artist points to a path forward; to where, though, is up to us as citizens.
13FOREST Gallery honors that history of free artistic expression, and we thank every artist who joins this ongoing conversation. Whether the subject is liberty, nature, love or the human spirit, these expressions need room to flourish, just as they did when Savage first sent his young Goddess of Liberty into the world.
| 
