Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy

January 28, 2022 - July 4, 2022

Discover how monument-making and monument-breaking have long shaped American life as public statues have been celebrated, attacked, protested, altered, and removed.

Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy explores monuments and their representations in public spaces as flashpoints of fierce debate over national identity, politics, and race that have raged for centuries. Offering a historical foundation for understanding today’s controversies, the exhibition features fragments of a statue of King George III torn down by American Revolutionaries, a souvenir replica of a bulldozed monument by Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage, and a maquette of New York City’s first public monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman, among other objects from the Museum’s collection. The exhibition reveals how monument-making and monument-breaking have long shaped American life as public statues have been celebrated, attacked, protested, altered, and removed. Curated by Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto, senior curator of American art

Check out our digital family guide to the exhibition from the DiMenna Children's History Museum.

Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy is supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Highlights

Alison Saar's Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial is the first public monument to an African American woman in New York City. This maquette is a study for that monument to the celebrated abolitionist who escaped slavery in 1849.

After listening to a public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776, Continental soldiers joined with patriotic New Yorkers in Bowling Green to tear down an equestrian statue of King George III. This is one of the remaining fragments.

Shop the Monuments Collection

The NYHistory Store has a fascinating selection of books, busts, and gifts related to the Monuments exhibition.

Browse the collection

Exhibitions at New-York Historical are made possible by Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang, the Saunders Trust for American History, the Evelyn & Seymour Neuman Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WNET is the media sponsor.

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