PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Gail Carrigan, Friends of the Vermont Statehouse Administrator
126 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05633
Email: info@vtstatehousefriends.org
Website: https://friendsvtstatehouse.org/artist-submission/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friends Group and State Curator’s Office Commission Portrait of
Alexander Twilight for the Vermont State House
MONTPELIER, VT: The Friends of the Vermont State House, a private non-profit that has worked for nearly 40 years helping to restore the building and to educate visitors at Vermont’s capitol in Montpelier, has agreed to join the Vermont State Curator’s Office in commissioning a portrait of Alexander Twilight, the first African American legislator in the United States.
In addition, the Friends have procured a major gift from the National Life Group of Vermont to pay for the creation of such a piece for the State House collection.
On the occasion of the 225th birthday of Alexander Twilight, a day designated by the Vermont General Assembly earlier this year as “Alexander Twilight Day”, Vermont State Curator David Schutz, Friends co-chairs Jack Carter and John Dumville, and National Life Group vice president Chris Graff announced their partnership in commissioning a work of art that will portray the well-known early Vermont educator and legislator. It is hoped the painting will be ready to hang in the State House by 2022.
Twilight was born September 23, 1795 to Ichabod and Mary Twilight of Corinth, Vermont, who are mentioned in a Corinth town history as the “first negroes” to live there. This reference remains one of the few pieces of evidence of Alexander Twilight’s biracial heritage. He would go on to study at Middlebury College, graduating in 1823 as probably the first African American college graduate in the country. Within a few years Twilight would move to Brownington, Vermont to serve as the principal of the Orleans County Grammar School—an institution of learning that would thrive under his leadership in the decades that followed. In 1836 Twilight managed to construct a four-story stone dormitory for students called Athenian Hall (today’s Old Stone House Museum)—and that same year he would be elected to represent the Town of Brownington in the Vermont General Assembly in Montpelier.
The State House remains closed during the current pandemic and will likely not open to the public again until 2021. The State Curator’s Office is currently developing a new interpretive plan for the historic building, which will guide public programming and appreciation in the decade ahead. For additional information, please contact State Curator David Schutz at david.schutz@vermont.gov.
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