CINCINNATI — First Lady Dr. Jill Biden selected 'Landscape with Rainbow,' a painting by an African American artist based in Cincinnati, as the Inaugural Painting.

What You Need To Know

  • 'Landscape with Rainbow' by was selected as the Inaugural Painting

  • The painting was selected by First Lady Jill Biden 

  • 'Landscape with Rainbow' was painted by Robert S.  Duncanson, an African American artist based in Cincinnati in 1859

  • Duncanson was a notable African American painter in the years surrounding the Civil War

'Landscape with Rainbow' by Robert S. Duncanson in 1859 was loaned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri as he presented the painting to the first lady and President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

"It is sort of the classic America as a paradise painting that a lot of painters were doing then. But for him, a Black artist painting this painting that's so much like an American utopia on the verge of a war that we would fight over slavery makes all of that even more interesting in that he faced lots of challenges was obviously optimistic even in 1859 about America," Blunt said.

Duncanson was a notable African American painter in the years surrounding the Civil War, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In Landscape with Rainbow, the Smithsonian said: "A young couple strolls through fertile pastureland, toward a house at the end of a rainbow. The cattle head home toward the nearby cottage, reinforcing the sense that man lives in harmony with nature."