From left to right, top to bottom. Frederic Edwin Church, Our Banner in the Sky, c. 1861. Oil on canvas. Fine Art Museums of San Francisco. Banks Violette, Not Yet Titled (Flag Edition), 2010.Marines of the 28th Regiment of the Fifth Division planted an American flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945. Joe Rosenthal/Associated Press. Barbara Kruger, Untitled, 1991. Photographic silkscreen/vinyl. Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery.

“O Say Can You See”: Artists Reimagine the Flag, a gallery talk with Dr. Robin Jaffee Frank on May 29, 2025 from 6-7pm.
Register Here.

Free for MoCA Members; $10 General Admisison

In conjunction with Banks Violette’s fraught representations of the American flag in MoCA CT’s solo exhibition, join Dr. Robin Jaffee Frank for a historical investigation of Old Glory as an iconic and ubiquitous symbol in American art and culture. Join Dr. Robin Jaffee Frank for a historical investigation of Old Glory as an iconic and ubiquitous symbol in American art and culture. Artists have incorporated its graphic stars and stripes into their work to achieve aesthetic ends, critique social and political inequalities, celebrate freedom and democracy, support an d mourn our troops, and express despair and hope. For many American citizens, as well as people around the world, our flag is a uniquely powerful and complex symbol of nationhood.

An independent curator, Robin Jaffee Frank has organized numerous exhibitions at museums throughout the US, lectured extensively, and published widely on American visual culture from the colonial through contemporary periods. She formerly served as Chief Curator and Curator of American Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, and Senior Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. Robin holds a PhD in the history of art from Yale University.