Black men and women figure prominently in many of William Sidney Mount’s paintings, most of which are based on people and places on the north shore of eastern Long Island, New York, where Mount was born and lived most of his life.

Bruce Robertson, professor emeritus of art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will focus on Robin Mills, the model for the Black man standing outside the barn in Mount’s famous The Power of Music.

Although the Black man in Mount’s painting is denied full participation in the activity within the barn, his substantial presence reveals, perhaps inadvertently, the substantiality of Mill’s place in Mount’s community, and hints at the agency of rural Black people like Mills who agitated to end slavery and gain full civil rights.

The Power of Music, 1847. William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868). Oil on canvas; framed: 67 x 78 x 7.5 cm (26 3/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 15/16 in.); unframed: 43.4 x 53.5 cm (17 1/16 x 21 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1991.110