Ray Rickman holds a portrait of 1800s artist Edward M. Bannister in the Stages of Freedom museum and bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island. TNS

In 1876 a New England painter became the first known Black artist to win a national award for his landscape. It then went missing for 100 years. That was until four art enthusiasts tracked the painting by Edward M. Bannister to Springfield, where it is believed to have hung in a boardroom of the MacDuffie School for decades. “We were ready to celebrate,” said Michael McGuigan, one of the four experts. Then they learned the school in the Six Corners neighbourhood, was sold, damaged by a tornado and further wrecked by a hurricane, all in a three-month period in 2011.

So, the Bottle remains corked since the masterpiece “Under the Oaks,” is still missing. An unlikely team of four art sleuths from Rhode Island — a middle school history teacher, a retired dermatologist, an art researcher and a former state representative who co-founded a Black heritage museum — have joined forces through their passion for art and the works of Bannister to search for the landscape.

  This is a statue of 19th century Black artist Edward M. Bannister in Providence. 

With so many leads ending in dead ends, the four decided to take a shot in the dark and advertise in The Republican two weeks ago, offering a $10,000 reward for a current photo and significant information leading to the location or acquisition of the painting.

“We haven’t gotten one response,” said Nicholas Bruno, a retired physician who lives in Providence.

“I’ve been looking for this painting for 40 years. Ed has been looking for it longer,” said Ray Rickman, the executive director of Stages of Freedom in Providence, a nonprofit that provides African-American cultural programs, operates a heritage museum and bookstore and offers free swimming lessons.

  Nicholas Bruno(left) Edward Shein and Michael McGuigan have tracked a missing painting of Edward Bannister. 

Ed, or Edward Shein, hoped the discovery that the painting was in Springfield was the end of a journey that started in 1971 when he was starting his career finding pieces of art for collectors. At that time, he bought a Bannister painting in a junk shop for $500, spurring him to learn more and develop a niche in the works of Black artists. Over the years Shein said he has found well over 100 works painted by Bannister for multiple clients including the now-disgraced actor Bill Cosby and his wife Camille, who had a number of his paintings in their Shelburne home.

But the one piece that always eluded him is “Under the Oaks.”  The painting is the first known piece by a Black artist to have won a national award. In 1876, it was one of more than 100 pieces of art entered in the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and won the first prize medal. It was listed as number 85 with Bannister’s name, but no one realized the artist was Black until he stood up to collect the award, Rickman said.

  This painting 'The Old Home' that hangs in the Providence Art Club is an example of the works of Black artist Edward M. Barrister. 

What happened after is not entirely clear. Several writings about the artist said organizers wanted to rescind the decision, but other artists protested and some judges left before the awards were announced. In the end the honour stood.

Bannister had sold the painting for $1,200 to John Duff, a Boston art collector, months before the Philadelphia exposition. So when it received the award, Duff was the owner, Bruno said. When Duff died his daughter, Sibbel A. Duff Bullard, inherited the collection. From there, a Yale student was able to track it down to an auction in New York where Andrew Wallace, who lived in Springfield, purchased it for $90 in 1914.

The price shows how the works of Bannister, who lived in Providence and died in 1901, had either fallen into obscurity or out of favor by then, Shein said.“The location of the painting has not been known since the turn of the century,” according to the website for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which owns multiple other Bannister paintings.

“I would hear things about it. I moved on but I was always keeping my eye out,” Shein said.

  The Wallace House at 201 Maple Street in Springfield. 

Last year, the four art detectives actively took up the search again, contacting more than 40 Wallace descendants in the hopes that one of them may remember the painting or knew its fate. Family members were cooperative but had little information, explaining the mansion had been sold to the neighboring MacDuffie School in 1951.

“This is the closest anyone has gotten to this painting in years,” McGuigan said.

The four agree the landscape likely remained in the boardroom of the school for more than 50 years without anyone in the school realizing the value and significance of the work.

“In January 2024 I changed strategies with a plan to reach out to the school, MacDuffie High School, that purchased the family estate and to begin exploring the historical records of galleries in Springfield that operated during that time,” McGuigan wrote in an article that he posted in the extensive website he has created about the life and work of Bannister and his wife Christiana Babcock Carteaux Bannister. That’s when they learned the school had moved to Granby and the back-to-back natural disasters would add a new challenge to their search. The four researchers started talking to former staff, students, trustees at MacDuffie to see if anyone remembered the painting. Making the search even more complicated is there is no known picture of the landscape since photography in the 1880s was nascent and complicated. All the four have is written descriptions and a pen and ink sketch Barrister drew when planning the painting.

Tribune News Service