A National Icon

George Washington died on this day in 1799, fewer than three years after his retirement from the presidency.

Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, Washington was elected the first president of the new nation that he struggled to free.

This painting by Justin McCarthy conjures the greatness of Washington's leadership in patriotic red, white, and blue. His composition was inspired by the painting George Washington Crossing the Delaware.

In McCarthy's variation on Emanuel Leutze's famous painting, revolutionary soldiers struggle to propel General George Washington's boat across the Delaware River before the American attack on the British at Trenton, New Jersey. Swirling brushstrokes obscure the land and convey the blowing snow of that bitter winter.

Source: Lynda Hartigan. Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Justin McCarthy, 1891–1977, Washington Crossing the Delaware, Variation on a Theme #3, about 1963, oil on fiberboard, 27 1/2 x 48 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr.