Liquid Gold- Black Gold, the Golden Age of Whaling. Installation of the exhibition at The Greenleaf Gallery at Whittier College, 2012
Walker's Hand, detail of hand
ink on board
2012
Detail of Walker's hand branded "S.S", for "Slave Stealer". Reappropriated in Whittier's poem to stand for "Salvation for the Slave". This image was painted and drawn from a daguerreotype, known as "one of the earliest conceptual portraits in that a body part can stand for the total personality."*
*Robert A. Sobieszek and Odette M. Appel. The Spirit of Fact: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes. Boston, 1976, p. 23.
Learn more about this image's history at the Massachusetts Historical Society