How did a famed painting of Frederick Douglass go missing from Fisk?

The towering portrait of noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass arrived at Fisk University to great fanfare.

A gift from W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the university's most famous graduates, the near life-size painting was cause for unfettered celebration when he made the donation in 1959. In a letter to Du Bois, then-President Stephen J. Wright was effusive in his thanks.

"It is certainly a magnificent portrait and I feel that we must unveil it with some kind of appropriate ceremony," Wright wrote in a Dec. 28, 1959 letter. "We are very grateful to you for this priceless gift."

But now, more than 50 years later, the prized portrait is gone.

Fisk's newest leaders say they are not sure what became of the decades-old gift. After a Tennessean inquiry, along with historic documents tracing the painting's journey from Du Bois' home in Brooklyn to Nashville, officials at Fisk said they are mounting an intense investigation to find the portrait.

"We welcome any information regarding this portrait as we continue our research that could be helpful in identifying the whereabouts of the Frederick Douglass painting," Interim President Frank Sims said in a statement. "The university continues to work closely with our legal counsel to resolve this important matter."

Fisk's sudden push to pinpoint the whereabouts of the once-treasured painting came as welcome news to Lisa Struckmeyer, a historian who has been searching fruitlessly for answers for three years. Her quest began in 2013 while working as a seasonal ranger and tour guide at the Frederick Douglass home, a National Historic Site in Washington, D.C. run by the National Park Service.

She was hypnotized by a portrait — five feet tall, dated 1883 — that hung in Douglass' sitting room. In the painting, a gray-haired Douglass stood, eyes glowing, holding a baton.

“The painting is quite stunning,” Struckmeyer said. “I always felt very privileged to be standing in front of it.”

Overcome with curiosity, she set about studying the artist, Sarah James Eddy, and how the portrait came to be. Struckmeyer soon discovered that seemingly simple question was complicated by shadows of history.

A tale of two paintings?

Among her findings were two photographs that appeared to show the same painting in different conditions, and in different parts of the nation, but at roughly the same time.

One, taken in May 1960 by Fisk, showed university leaders standing by the newly unveiled and restored painting in Du Bois Hall. The other, taken in June 1964, according to records from the National Park Service, showed a strikingly similar painting with a discolored streak down the middle. That painting leaned against a wall in Frederick Douglass' house.

But there is no paper trail suggesting that the Fisk portrait was ever sent to Douglass' home, according to the National Park Service. And Fisk said there is no record that its painting was ever sold or sent to another institution.

Struckmeyer and the museum curator at the Frederick Douglass historic site determined the paintings could be distinct copies.

Historic accounts show Eddy made multiple copies of one of her other high-profile pieces: a well-known portrait of women's suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony. And when Struckmeyer conducted a video interview with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the famed Fisk alum and civil rights leader recalled seeing the Douglass portrait in Du Bois Hall, which was a dormitory at the time, as late as 1963.

Struckmeyer undertook a dogged, yearslong search for the Douglass portrait given to Fisk, which she thought of as the missing partner of the painting she had admired in person.

Answers came quickly — at first.

Working alongside researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where a collection of Du Bois' letters are archived, Struckmeyer reviewed a trove of documents related to the painting.

There was a letter from Du Bois to Eddy in 1914 in which he asked for the painting, calling it "a most excellent and interesting work." He promised to rearrange furniture and hang it in a prominent spot "so that the world could have the advantage of it."

A photograph from around 1946 showed Du Bois at home standing in front of the portrait. In the photo, Du Bois, co-founder of the NAACP and a lifelong activist, matches Douglass' steady expression.

And in 1959, when Du Bois was 91, he made arrangements to donate the portrait to Fisk, his alma mater. An expert on Du Bois described the gift as a profound gesture to the institution where he first developed a racial identity, one that would shape the rest of his life and American history.

“Frederick Douglass is a symbol of not just freedom but the ability through speech and through oration to tell the story of African-Americans" in a style Du Bois sought to emulate, said Whitney Battle-Baptiste, director of W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For Du Bois, “sending (the painting) back to Fisk University is important because Frederick Douglass in many ways embodies the ideas of freedom" that Du Bois cultivated there.

Fisk students have long history of fighting injustice

Du Bois had the portrait shipped to Fisk in December 1959, and asked the university to include an inscription noting that it was a gift from him and his daughter, also a Fisk graduate.

Fisk received the portrait and sent Du Bois a news release that university officials had written to trumpet the painting's arrival. The release, from May 1960, included the photograph of the top university leaders of the day beaming alongside the portrait in Du Bois Hall. A brief story ran in The Tennessean confirming the painting's placement and significance.

That is where the paper trail ends.

A renewed search

When Struckmeyer reached out to several leaders at Fisk, some of whom have since left the university, she said she was met with a mixture of surprise and silence. But no answers.

In a letter dated Feb. 14, 2014, which Struckmeyer shared with The Tennessean, former Fisk curator Victor D. Simmons thanked Struckmeyer for bringing the portrait "to our attention," indicating he was not aware of its existence before she reached out.

"As you know, Dr. Du Bois ... is our most celebrated graduate and his gift of the portrait (of) Douglass, the former slave and esteemed civil rights advocate, would represent an important cornerstone in our fine art collection," he wrote. "Be assured that we are working diligently to solve this mystery as we are determined to find out what became of the painting. We hope to have something of substance to report on the matter in the coming weeks."

Struckmeyer said she never heard back from Simmons.

Frustrated by unanswered emails and looming questions, Struckmeyer with some trepidation reached out to The Tennessean this year.

"I didn't want to bring bad press on Fisk at all," Struckmeyer said, a sentiment she echoed several times across multiple interviews.

She shared details of her search for the portrait and her communication with the university in hopes that the added publicity might help unravel the mystery. Her hope, she said, is that the painting is recovered and a new generation of Fisk students might come to appreciate a painting that had such an effect on her.

Difficult time for Fisk 

The potential of a long-lost Douglass portrait comes at an awkward time for Fisk, as leaders there are trying to ensure alumni and community members that they are good stewards of the university's sprawling and storied art collection.

Controversy rippled at Fisk earlier this summer when news broke that leaders there had subtly sold two valuable pieces of donated art in 2010. Critics blasted the move, saying that Fisk was wrong to cash in on donated artwork that was intended to be displayed on campus.

It's a criticism Fisk has weathered before.

Fisk University leaders justify 2010 sale of paintings

Also in 2010, Fisk was enmeshed in an extensive legal battle to sell off its prized Alfred Stieglitz Collection, which was donated to the university by Georgia O'Keeffe in 1949. The university eventually agreed to a multimillion-dollar deal to share the collection with a museum in Arkansas.

The new revelation that another piece of donated art has disappeared without documentation will surely lead to another wave of bad press.

But an expert on university museums said problems like this are not unique to Fisk. Universities often find holes in their art collections, sometimes many years after the work went missing.

"It's not an anomaly," said Suzanne Hale, collections manager for the art museum at Colorado State University. "If I were coming in as a new collections manager I would be surprised if 100 percent of the collection was completely located, found and logged."

Hale said that universities often face an uphill battle because, in the past, the task of managing art collections often fell to people with other duties or with no training in museum work. The arrival of trained curators — and sophisticated management software — on campus is a relatively new national trend.

And when artwork is displayed outside of a museum, as the Douglass portrait was, it can easily be moved without anyone noticing. But Hale added that when pieces of art go missing, it is rarely due to malfeasance, but rather "lack of thought and lack of attention."

In a column published in The Tennessean this month, Sims, Fisk's interim president, said the university has taken steps in recent years to strengthen the oversight it brings to its art collections. He said a new curator, Jamaal Sheats, and a robust support team, coupled with a multimillion-dollar renovation of a campus gallery, showed Fisk's continued dedication to works of art.

Art remains integral to Fisk University's culture

Struckmeyer was quick to praise the work Fisk has done in recent years, and to stress that the lost painting isn't necessarily a reflection on Sims and the current leadership team. She figures the painting was lost long before today's top administrators arrived on campus.

“This happened, I’m guessing, so long ago that it shouldn’t really reflect on the stories going on right now," she said. "I don't blame anyone today."

Her goal, she said, is not to rail against Fisk administrators, but to see the Du Bois' wishes for the painting honored.

“I want it to find it’s way back to Fisk. I want it to hang in Du Bois Hall where he wanted it to be," she said. “I just want it found and brought back to life there."

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.

W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. DuBois, who graduated from Fisk in 1888, is one of the university's most famous former students. He was one of the founders of the NAACP. For decades, he served as the agency’s director of publicity and research, a member of the board of directors and editor of the Crisis, the organization's monthly magazine, according to the NAACP website.

He was one of the most prominent voices of the early civil rights movement, writing books and advocating for black people across the globe into the early 1960s. He died in Ghana in 1963, less than four years after donating the portrait of Frederick Douglass to Fisk.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 Maryland. He taught himself to read while working in the streets of Baltimore, according to a biography kept by the National Park Service.

He led slaves in an attempted rebellion against their owner, and ultimately escaped slavery in 1838, at the age of 20.

He became known as a gifted orator and spoke out passionately against slavery and racism. He also became a vocal supporter of women’s rights. After the Civil War, he became a government official, serving in multiple roles. He died at 77 in his home in Washington, D.C.

Sarah James Eddy

Sarah James Eddy was a member of a wealthy Rhode Island family with ties to the abolitionist and women’s rights movements. She was an artist who produced sculptures, paintings and photographs. In addition to the portrait of Frederick Douglass, Eddy is also known for her paintings of Susan B. Anthony.

About Fisk University's art

Fisk University has an expansive art collection, but its centerpiece is The Stieglitz Collection, a donation from Georgia O’Keeffe that includes works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Auguste-Pierre Renoir, O’Keeffe and others.

The university established the Carl Van Vechten Gallery on campus in 1949 after O’Keeffe’s donation was received.

After a lengthy legal battle during which university leaders sought to sell the collection to stay financially solvent, the university agreed to share the collection with an Arkansas museum. The deal made Fisk millions, and leaders at the time said the cash helped the university stay open.

The Stieglitz collection is currently on display at the Van Vechten Gallery. The gallery is located on the corner of Dr. D.B. Todd Jr. Boulevard and Jackson Avenue and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.