Goliad Mission, Goliad, Texas, from the series Manifest Destiny

Tony Gleaton, Goliad Mission, Goliad, Texas, from the series Manifest Destiny, 2001, printed 2021, digital gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2022.38.3, © Tony Gleaton Used With Permission, Tony Gleaton's Photography Sub Trust All Rights Reserved
Copied Tony Gleaton, Goliad Mission, Goliad, Texas, from the series Manifest Destiny, 2001, printed 2021, digital gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 × 23 34 in. (50.8 × 60.3 cm) image: 17 12 × 21 78 in. (44.5 × 55.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2022.38.3, © Tony Gleaton Used With Permission, Tony Gleaton's Photography Sub Trust All Rights Reserved

Artwork Details

Title
Goliad Mission, Goliad, Texas, from the series Manifest Destiny
Artist
Date
2001, printed 2021
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 20 × 23 34 in. (50.8 × 60.3 cm) image: 17 12 × 21 78 in. (44.5 × 55.6 cm)
Copyright
© Tony Gleaton Used With Permission, Tony Gleaton's Photography Sub Trust All Rights Reserved
Credit Line
Museum purchase
Mediums Description
digital gelatin silver print
Classifications
Subjects
  • Architecture Exterior — religious — mission
Object Number
2022.38.3

Artwork Description

Tony Gleaton's expansive landscapes and quiet views of man-made structures across the American West construct a history that is largely unknown. In 1999, Gleaton began traveling west of the Mississippi River to continue his career-long quest to research and document the experiences of the African diaspora across the Americas. Pairing evocative images with descriptive text that details events that transpired in specific places, Gleaton reveals how Black people participated in historical events that made the American West, from the Indian Wars to the Texas Revolution, the Gold Rush, Mid-West homesteading, and beyond. Gleaton's motivation was not only to document this forgotten, epic history, but to "undermine perceptions of the genesis of 'the West' [as we've come to see it]."

Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, 2023