Article
Teach with Collections: Titus Kaphar, To Be Sold
On July 31, 1766, the headline "To Be Sold" announced the sale of six African American slaves on the site of Princeton University's Maclean House, as part of the dispersal of the estate of Samuel Finley, president of the University from 1761 to 1766. Kaphar's work responds to the archival records of this sale, affixing with nails the tattered strips of a painted enlargement of that advertisement along the contours of a portrait bust of Finley. The contemporary work merges two traditions: honorific oil-portrait busts and Kongo power figures (minkisi). To Be Sold aims to invert the relationship between the entrenched heroic image of a founding father, the typical subject of historical memory, and the enslaved human who remained unseen and unknown.
Conversation prompts:
Kaphar is known for his study of traditional American and European art, especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and his interest in amending history. How does this work transform the traditional genre of portraiture? What effect does this transformation have on the viewer?
Which materials and techniques does Kaphar combine? How do they complement (or contrast with) one another?
Describe the relationship between what is visible and invisible in this work.
Conversation prompts:
Kaphar is known for his study of traditional American and European art, especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and his interest in amending history. How does this work transform the traditional genre of portraiture? What effect does this transformation have on the viewer?
Which materials and techniques does Kaphar combine? How do they complement (or contrast with) one another?
Describe the relationship between what is visible and invisible in this work.
