The Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati announced in March 2026 that it is marking two landmark anniversaries: the 175th anniversary of Robert S. Duncanson’s landscape murals at the historic Taft house, and the 40th anniversary of the Duncanson Artist-in-Residence Program, one of the country’s longest-running residencies dedicated to community engagement and artists of color.

Duncanson, a Cincinnati-born African American artist, painted the murals in 1850–51 in what was then the home of Nicholas Longworth. The murals—now on permanent display at the Taft Museum—depict eight landscape scenes and remain among the finest extant examples of American Romantic landscape painting from that period. The Duncanson Artist-in-Residence Program, which the museum launched in 1986, has since brought dozens of artists to Cincinnati for exhibitions and community outreach, with a focus on artists of color whose work engages with identity, history, and place.

The 2026 Duncanson Artist-in-Residence is painter Ayana Ross, whose exhibition “Beyond the Picturesque: The American Landscape as a Site of Memory, Identity, and Continuity” opens April 11 and runs through July 26, 2026, in the Sinton Gallery and Duncanson Foyer. Ross is known for figural paintings and narrative portraiture that explores intergenerational themes, cultural memory, and everyday Black life. Her selection continues the program’s mission of pairing contemporary artistic practice with the legacy of Duncanson’s own work on the museum’s walls. The Taft Museum of Art is located at 316 Pike Street in Cincinnati.

Source: Taft Museum of Art Press Room