{"id":18983,"date":"2011-12-14T04:47:55","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T04:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=18983"},"modified":"2016-01-19T20:33:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T20:33:14","slug":"an-art-history-mystery-at-worcester-art-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=18983","title":{"rendered":"An art history mystery at Worcester Art Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

An art history mystery at Worcester Art Museum<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Metrowest Daily News<\/a>
\nFramingham, Massachusetts
\n2011-12-12<\/p>\n

Chris Bergeron<\/strong>, Daily News Staff<\/p>\n

WORCESTER\u2014Forget the da Vinci Code<\/em><\/a>. There\u2019s no Knight Templars<\/a> or murderous albinos, but the life and death of Julien Hudson<\/a> and the whereabouts of his paintings is a fascinating \u201cart historical mystery\u2019\u2019 waiting to be solved.<\/p>\n

The second-earliest documented painter of African descent in the U.S. [after Joshua Johnson<\/a>\u00a0(see article \u201cThe Mysterious Portraitist Joshua Johnson<\/a>\u201d)], Hudson was making his mark as a portraitist in New Orleans<\/a> in the early 1800s before dying of unknown causes, leaving behind just six canvases.<\/p>\n

Who was the man with searching eyes in one of his remaining paintings? Did he kill himself, as some suspect? With his sixth painting discovered by a New England collector, can more of Hudson\u2019s valuable works be found in area shops, flea markets or your attic?<\/p>\n

An intriguing exhibit, \u201cIn Search of Julien Hudson<\/a>,\u201d at the Worcester Art Museum<\/a>, offers the first retrospective about the man and the artist whose enigmatic career casts light on the lives of free blacks and mixed race people in Louisiana<\/a> before the Civil War<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Organizer William Keyse Rudolph said, \u201cThe search for Julien Hudson isn\u2019t over.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…For many New Englanders, \u201cIn Search of Julien Hudson\u2019\u2019 will provide an exciting opportunity to learn about a vital subculture of the pre-Civil War<\/a> South that belies some stereotypes and confirms others.<\/p>\n

Rudolph explained that Hudson was the mixed-race grandson of a woman who been freed from slavery and the oldest of four children born from the union of Desiree Marcos and Thomas Hudson, an English merchant and ship\u2019s chandler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From its founding in 1718 to its sale in 1803 to the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase<\/a>, New Orleans maintained a class of free people of color who were regarded as a \u201cthird caste,\u2019\u2019 with a legal and social status that positioned them between the enslaved and free whites.<\/p>\n

Hudson\u2019s life reveals many of the possibilities and limitations experienced by free blacks in New Orleans…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An art history mystery at Worcester Art Museum Metrowest Daily News Framingham, Massachusetts 2011-12-12 Chris Bergeron, Daily News Staff WORCESTER\u2014Forget the da Vinci Code. There\u2019s no Knight Templars or murderous albinos, but the life and death of Julien Hudson and the whereabouts of his paintings is a fascinating \u201cart historical mystery\u2019\u2019 waiting to be solved. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,459,8,20],"tags":[8713,8712,8715,8711,8714],"class_list":["post-18983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-chris-bergeron","tag-julien-hudson","tag-metrowest-daily-news","tag-william-keyse-rudolph","tag-worcester-art-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45205,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18983\/revisions\/45205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}