Frederick Douglass : Liberty Mural | New Addition to The Lewis Museum

A Message from President Terri Lee Freeman

“If you have recently driven down President Street near Pratt, you may have glanced at a mural installed on the side of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture. No, your eyes are not deceiving you; that is a rendering of Maryland’s own Frederick Douglass, posing in a pinstripe suit, fancy watch, and sneakers. Not unlike the mission of the Lewis Museum, this contemporary linocut of Douglass seeks to provoke questions and conversation. Because he was the most photographed figure during his lifetime, many people can easily identify his likeness…even if portrayed in contemporary dress.

Born into slavery in 1818 as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland, he escaped in 1838 and headed north to New York City, eventually settling in Massachusetts. He became the greatest advocate for abolition and civil rights during the 19th century. A famed orator and believer in education, Douglass noted that “knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.”

During his lifetime, he became a confidant to President Abraham Lincoln. Without his knowledge, he became the first African American to be nominated as a vice presidential candidate as running mate to Victoria Woodhull on the Equal Rights Party ticket. No stranger to controversy, Douglass supported women’s suffrage and famously accused religious leaders of blasphemy for not calling out the injustices of slavery in his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Created by Utah-based artist Adam Himoff, the Lewis Museum posted the 21-foot mural of Douglass not to spark controversy but to spark conversation. We want people to think critically about the ‘why’. When you see this mural, how does it make you feel? What do you think, and why? We contend that Douglass, who was always immaculately dressed in the most fashionable attire, would be Douglass regardless of his wearing sneakers or wingtips, standing upright at a podium, or kneeling in repose.

Regardless of your perspective, if we’ve made you think, we’ve succeeded. Throughout this fall season, we will have more postings and programs around this giant abolitionist. We encourage you to visit the museum to view the mural in person, and connect with us on social media to continue the conversation about how perception can prevent us from creating equity.”

Frederick Douglass | Liberty is a modernized reimagining of the American abolitionist, writer, orator, and statesman Frederick Douglass (1817-1895). In the portrait, he is confident, determined, and courageous as we know him, but he is also remarkably hip and stylish in modern fashion and posed before a graffiti-scrawled space. This mix of old and new, echoed in the combination of a traditional relief printing technique with modern elements, forces the viewer to pull Douglass forward in time, examine his lasting impact on our world, and wonder at the role and life he might have lived if he was alive today.

Artist Biography

Adam Himoff is a contemporary artist born in New York City in 1976. In his childhood, Adam was heavily influenced by New York’s rich multiculturalism and the abundance of art surrounding him from graffiti to public works to museum masterworks. His artistic training was largely self-directed and included classes at The Art Students League of New York, Rhode Island School of Design, and Dartmouth College, where he graduated cum laude in 1998 with a BA in English Literature and significant coursework in Studio Art. At Dartmouth, Adam was heavily influenced by Art Professor Louise Hamlin, who introduced him to woodcut and linocut printmaking and advised his senior independent project illustrating Shakespeare’s Hamlet in woodcut prints.

Following college, Adam worked for several decades in finance in New York City and Los Angeles, often juggling time with artistic projects. Adam graduated at the top of his class with a graduate degree in Entrepreneurship from UCLA Anderson School of Business in 2011. In 2013, he moved with his family to Park City, Utah, where he launched a recruiting company, which he grew for 10 years and then sold in 2022. Having returned to his artwork during Covid, creating elaborate, highly-detailed, poster-sized linocut prints, Adam used the sale of his business as an opportunity to return to his art practice full-time.

In his artwork, Adam uses line work to construct high-energy representational and abstract imagery across diverse media, including woodcut, linocut, painting, and sculpture, in order to upend the viewer’s sense of normalcy and demand an exploration and reassessment of his or her world. Common themes he addresses in his artwork are race, religion, national identity, social justice, futurism, and environmentalism.

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

– Frederick Douglass