The Minnesota Marine Art Museum and Edward Moran
by Erin Renk
The first time I went to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum I was in kindergarten on a school field trip. I was too young to appreciate or even understand any of the paintings around me. That was the last time I had been to this museum. Since I grew up in Winona, I never considered the museum to be anything more than a boring attraction of my city. The second time I went my mindset changed significantly. As I strolled past the walls of paintings, I found myself in wonderment of the famous artists and their works that decorated the rooms. While all of the paintings were beautiful and unique one painting stuck with me. The painting was Commerce of Nations Rendering Homage to Liberty by Edward Moran and its immense size was enough to catch my eye. I left the gallery with my mind set on this painting as my topic but I wanted to research the important history of it first.
In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye suggested the idea of a monument representing the friendship between the United States and France. Laboulaye was involved in the making of the U.S constitution, an abolitionist, and a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. The Union victory in the Civil War was the cause of his proposal. He thought that this triumph represented America’s ideals of “freedom and democracy.” He also hoped that the statue would provide “cause for democracy in France”. Ten years later, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design the Statue of Liberty and bring Laboulaye’s idea to life. The Americans settled to build the pedestal and foundation while the French agreed to design and build the actual statue. To be able to pay for the structure, both countries needed to fundraise money to see the project through. To do this France used, “public fees, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery”. On the other hand, America used “benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions, and prizefights” to fundraise. Bartholdi wanted an artist to paint his vision of the Statue of Liberty. He chose an American painter, one who ‘recognized the potential of fusing aesthetics and propaganda in art. . .’. This man that Bartholdi held in such high esteem was Edward Moran.
Edward Moran was born in 1829 in Bolton, Lancashire, in the United Kingdom. His love of painting started with drawing and sketching with charcoals. However, being an artist was not the profession he set out to have, his parents were simple hand-loom weavers and he helped with the family business. When Edward was just 15, he and his family immigrated to Maryland, in the United States. While in America he worked at a textile factory. Moran had a manager at the factory who found him drawing at work. His manager saw his talent and had him meet with Paul Weber, a landscape artist living in Philadelphia. Moran went on to become an associate at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1874. In 1876, he met with the creator of the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi. Moran was inspired by Bartholdi’s vision and he painted Commerce of Nations Rendering Homage to Liberty which he then displayed as a means to fundraise for the actual statue to be built. He then furthered his aspirations by studying in France for two years. This trip inspired him to paint what would be his most famous paintings. He spent most of his career painting 13 paintings (13 for each colony) of the United States´ most significant maritime events. He died of old age in the year 1901.
Over the years, the Statue of Liberty became a symbol for incoming immigrants to the United States. According to a statue historian, it “was never built for immigrants” but “it was really immigrants that lifted her up to a sort of glory . . .”. Many immigrants, including Edward Moran, had seen the Statue of Liberty and recognized it as a sign of freedom and hope. People from all around the world came to America in search of independence and religious freedom. Some of these people happened to come to the small town that is now Winona, Minnesota. These people were the Polish and they came in by the millions to Ellis Island on New York Harbor. The Polish left their homelands of Pomerania, Poznan, and East Prussia. Some of them were escaping religious persecution and mandatory enlistment in the Polish army during World War II. The Polish settled in Winona because of its natural environment. Including factors such as, “good climate, good soil, a rolling and almost flat land conducive to agriculture, livestock and dairy farming”. By 1886, Winona’s Polish community had about 700 families. This grew to the place it is today, still rich in Polish history; so much so that Winona’s downtown has its own Polish Heritage museum. Winona’s immigrants have experienced the excitement of seeing the Statue of Liberty, the hope of a new future; I believe that was what Moran was trying to capture in his painting.
Commerce of Nations Rendering Homage to Liberty by Edward Moran was painted in 1876, 10 years before the actual Statue of Liberty was built upon Liberty Island. The masterpiece rests in an ornate, golden frame in the back of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. This eight-foot-tall painting of the Statue of Liberty sits straight across from the infamous Washington Crossing the Delaware in a “celebration of patriotism.” I walked across the room void from anything but the artwork that hangs from the walls. The size alone is enough to draw a person to it. The image shows the Statue of Liberty awash in a golden haze of sunlight above her head. The sky around her breaks through the scattered, puffy clouds. At the foundation of the monument, lies a fog of thick cannon smoke from the dedication ceremony just moments before. The colorful flags of countries such as Italy, Japan, France, and of course, the United States stand tall on the masts of their motherland’s ship. Towards the front of the painting, people of all different kinds look up in awe of Lady Liberty. Ladies in pastel, Victorian dresses talking amongst themselves. And sailors with huge American flags trailing their small, brown rowboats. Young boys with their newsboy caps in their waving hands. All of these boats rest on the glimmering water of the New York Harbor, crowding around what is now Liberty Island Moran’s painting is so detailed that I felt like I could fall into it. I could smell the sea salt of the water and the smoke from cannons that had just gone off. I could hear the yelling from opposite boats and feel the enormous excitement. And I could imagine the feeling of the sunlight on my face as I stared up at the new icon that would serve as a symbol of hope for immigrants.
This painting is now worth over a million dollars and was painted by a very talented and famous artist. So my question was, why is it in Winona, Minnesota? Why not at a museum in New York or even the White House? I took this question to a member of the staff at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum named Dave Casey. In short, he told me that Moran’s painting represents “an important part of the nation’s social and nautical history” and that they had a few more of Moran’s other paintings in their museum collection. He also told me that the painting depicted the Statue of Liberty which represented, “a beacon of hope for millions of immigrants that crossed the ocean on board ships.” This is the part I want to emphasize: Winona became a home for millions of immigrants who were far from home and the Statue of Liberty was the first thing they saw on land as they sailed through New York’s harbor.
The painting went through many places before it came to Winona. From the Palette Club in 1876 to a banquet in Paris for Ulysses S. Grant in 1877. Joseph S. Drexel was the first owner of the painting and paid 10,000 dollars for it. At the bottom right-hand corner, Drexel´s daughter can be seen wearing a pink dress, painted into the masterpiece. In 2016, Drexel’s remaining relatives sold the painting at an auction to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. In October of 2017, the staff unveiled the painting to the crowd. The painting was purchased by the generous Bob Kierlin and Mary Burrichter who collect art for the museum.
The painting wasn’t there twelve years ago when I first came to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, but I learned to appreciate the painting that much more through learning the history behind it. When Nicole Chamberlain-Dupree of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum was about to unveil Commerce of Nations Rendering Homage to Liberty, she said this in reference to the painting: “It’s a celebration of what those generations of Americans did.” Americans have gone through the Union Victory of the Civil War which initially inspired Edouard de Laboulaye to propose the idea of the Statue of Liberty. America helped to build the Statue of Liberty with France. Immigrants have left their families and their lives as they knew them to come to the United States, in constant search for the Statue of Liberty on the horizon. Moran wanted to display the importance of democracy and freedom of the people. He may have just painted an image, but to many Americans that statue means much more than a structure of green copper. It means to have the right to live one’s life independently and with freedom, and that is something that Edward Moran captures perfectly.
