Jervis McEntee, a Hudson River School painter of moderate reputation, might have slipped quietly from memory if not for the diary he kept from 1872 to 1890. This talk offers a new reading of his diary, preserved at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, and its relevance today.

Across nearly two decades, McEntee records with unsparing steadiness the ordinary, difficult work of sustaining a creative life during a period of profound change. What emerges is a portrait of an artist committed to his principles, even as he watched the artistic world that had shaped him steadily recede.

This talk is also a meditation on what we can and cannot know. Despite its extraordinary depth, McEntee’s diary points repeatedly to what has been lost: letters, account books, paintings, and conversations. How much can we recover from surviving records—and what remains unknowable?
 

About the presenter

Liza Kirwin is deputy director emerita at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art and Kress-Beinecke Professor at the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts for the 2026–2027 academic year.