Much of our understanding of history comes from written accounts, but it is art and photography (and notably portraits) that really brings these people and events to life. Take the 18th-century English painter Thomas Gainsborough’s sensitive portrayal of Charles Ignatius Sancho, in which the prominent writer, composer and abolitionist appears elegantly dressed and gazes into the distance. To see the work is to get a sense of his presence.
Sancho, who was born on a British slave ship in around 1729, was in his late thirties at the time the painting was made, in approximately 1768. By then, he had been raised in England by three unmarried sisters before briefly working as a butler for the Duchess of Montagu and eventually setting up a grocery shop. In his spare time he wrote books and was a leading voice within the British abolitionist movement. As a property-owner, he became one of the very first Black British people to vote in a general election, in 1774.
The Gainsborough portrait is currently included in “Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition” at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England until June 1. The exhibition sets out to uncover the many long-buried histories of individuals and communities who helped bring an end to the transatlantic slave trade. Unlike Sancho, however, most of these figures were never the subject of a grand portrait by one of the leading society painters of their day. In some cases, there is no known visual record at all.
Thomas Gainsborough, Ignatius Sancho (1768). Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The show’s curators have filled this gap by spotlighting much more recent work by contemporary artists who have sought to redress this imbalance. In doing so, their work brings new attention to some of the revolutionaries and abolitionists that history has overlooked.
Three contemporary portraits included in the show were made by rising star Joy Labinjo in 2022. “I started off feeling sad and annoyed about the fact that these figures weren’t more widely known and that quickly moved to excitement,” the British-Nigerian artist recalled recently. “All of their stories are so rich and magical to the point of sounding fictional at points, I couldn’t wait to share and that gave me so much energy whilst making the works.”
In , which was acquired by the Fitzwilliam in 2022, Labinjo depicts the writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano with his family. The composition of the group portrait strongly echoes that of Gainsborough’s (c. 1748), and Labinjo was also able to refer to a miniature portrait of Equiano from his lifetime. Although the original has been lost, the work is known to us via an engraved version that appeared as the frontispiece of Equiano’s 1789 book .
The book recounts how Equiano, who was born in an Igbo village, was abducted and enslaved as a child and transported to Barbados and the U.S. He bought his freedom in 1766 and, after working as a sailor on British merchant ships, eventually settled in London in the late 1770s. There he befriended leading abolitionists who encouraged him to write a firsthand account of his experiences, most particularly of the Middle Passage. It became a best-seller, was published internationally, and gained many new supporters for the anti-slavery movement.
Joy Labinjo, Phillis Wheatley (2022). Photo: Stuart Whipps. Courtesy of the Artist and Tiwani Contemporary, © Joy Labinjo.
While painting, Labinjo turned to sources like David Olusoga’s . “It was important to me that I had an accurate understanding of the lives lived and the historical context of the figures I’d chosen to bring to life,” she said. “I knew that it would be many viewers first introduction to the figures so I wanted to be sure I was sharing accurate information.”
Another important figure that the artist has portrayed is the poet Phillis Wheatley, who was born in West Africa, kidnapped as a child, sold into slavery, and transported to Boston. After being purchased by the relatively progressive wealthy merchant John Wheatley, she was taught to read and write by his children and, after traveling to London in 1773, published her . She soon found fame and her work was read and praised by prominent figures like George Washington, who invited her to meet him. Sadly, after being manumitted by the Wheatleys, many of whom died just a few years later, Phillis fell into poverty and died of pneumonia at the age of 31.
Again, Labinjo was able to model her painting on a portrait of the author that was used as the frontispiece of , in which Wheatley appears pen in hand and lost in contemplation. It is believed to be by the enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead, who was also from Boston.
François Cauvin, Toussaint Louverture (2009). Photo: © François Cauvin.
The Haitian-born, Montreal-based artist François Cauvin has created several imagined portraits of Haitian revolutionaries of whom there is no surviving visual record. These figures helped establish Haiti as the first independent Caribbean state in 1804. One woman rebel depicted by Cauvin is (2023), who appears standing proud in her lieutenant’s uniform like the “ferocious woman” she was once derogatorily described as. Her image has also appeared on Haitian banknotes and, in 2023, was featured in an exhibition in Paris dedicated to lesser-known historical figures who contributed to the abolition of slavery.
One of Cauvin’s most famous portraits on view at the Fitzwilliam is a 2009 painting of one of the military leaders who helped overthrow French rule. It aims to present the international statesman with a dignity he was not granted in earlier portraits, most particularly a 1832 lithograph by Nicolas Maurin, which as been described as a racist caricature. In Cauvin’s reworking of the image, Louverture’s large cockade hat has been replaced with a guinea fowl, birds which are seen as symbols of resistance in Haiti. After the non-native animal was introduced by colonizers to Saint-Dominque, it ran away and refused to be kept captive.
Joscelyn Gardner, Aristolochia bilobala (Nimine) (2010). Photo: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Courtesy of the artist.
Based between Barbados and Canada, the artist Joscelyn Gardner made a series of hand-colored lithographs, the (2010–11), as a tribute to the many enslaved women whose names and faces remain absent from history. The anonymous heads are seen from behind, evoking a presence but prompting the viewer to use their own imaginations to fill in the gaps. Beneath the carefully braided hairstyles in each image is a hanging wildflower native to the Caribbean, after which the drawing is named.
These colorful plants were sometimes used by enslaved women as natural abortifacients, an act of resistance against unwanted pregnancies and exploitation. They are contrasted against chains and collars, representing the brutal forms of punishment used against these women if they were found out.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
