Nearly 250 years after George Washington led Continental troops across the icy Delaware River in a daring Christmas night maneuver, a new exhibition in Bucks County is asking visitors to reconsider one of the most enduring images in American history.
Opening June 27 at the Michener Art Museum, 'The Crossing: Picturing the American Revolution' explores how artists have shaped — and reshaped — public understanding of Washington’s famed 1776 crossing. The exhibition arrives as the nation prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and is located just miles from where the historic event took place.
Artworks include the first museum exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s 'Washington Crossing the Delaware,' a massive toy brick reproduction of the 21-foot Emmanuel Leutze painting. And an immersive installation by vanessa german, 'Miracles and Glory Abound,' features otherworldly, full-sized figures constructed from found objects.
“At the Michener, we proudly honor the enduring legacy of Washington's Crossing right here in Bucks County—just steps from where history was made,” Executive Director and CEO Anne Corso said. “The story isn't what we learned in our textbooks, and who better to guide us through its complexities than artist voices from across our nation's 250 years.”
For many Americans, the image most associated with the crossing is Emanuel Leutze’s monumental 1851 painting 'Washington Crossing the Delaware,' now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The dramatic scene depicts Washington standing heroically in a boat amid towering ice floes, an image that has become synonymous with Revolutionary-era leadership and determination.
Historians, however, have long noted that the painting is far from historically accurate. Washington Crossing Historic Park has described it as the most prominent — and arguably least accurate — representation of the event.
Before Leutze’s 1851 composition, the most recognized depiction of Washington’s Crossing was Thomas Sully’s 'The Passage of the Delaware' from 1819. Michener Art Museum presents two paintings of 'Washington at the Delaware' by Edward Hicks, a Bucks County Quaker minister and sign painter, who famously copied prints of Sully’s work for the local market. The artworks show the popularity of both Sully’s painting and Washington’s Crossing as an artistic subject.
Several works by modern and contemporary artists—including William Francis Taylor, Charles W. Hargens, Mort Künstler, and Robert Beck—reexamine the historical accuracy of Leutze’s painting of Washington Crossing and offer their own more truthful version of the event.
Washington appears as a dark shadow dwarfed by a wide, ice-filled river in Pennsylvania impressionist William Francis Taylor’s scene from 1937, painted after the New Hope artist “decided that all the known paintings of General Washington’s crossing of the Delaware were inspiring but not the least bit realistic.”
The contemporary Bucks County artist Robert Beck also studied the recorded conditions of Washington’s Crossing, and even sat in a Durham Boat, to execute his 1999 painting 'Second Crossing.'
Other contemporary artists featured in the exhibition consider the peoples, perspectives, and histories that are not represented within Leutze’s composition to comment on American history and current events more broadly.
Sculptor and painter vanessa german injects the iconic visualization of Washington crossing the Delaware into a large-scale, multimedia piece that celebrates Black womanhood. 'Miracles and Glory Abound,' last shown publicly in 2023, populates the historical narrative with new characters to invite conversation about public memory and the mythologization of history.
Philadelphia’s Mark Thomas Gibson references Washington’s Crossing’s legacy in history painting with works like 'Return on a Homeward Tide' and 'Shipwreck,' that comment on a polarized United States. Gibson’s 'Weathering the Storm' captures the forward momentum and heroic drive in 'Washington Crossing the Delaware,' and applies it within a contemporary scene of protest.
Sketches and studies by Kent Monkman, a Cree First Nations painter, portray the relationship of Indigenous peoples with newcomers to their lands with imagery inspired by Leutze’s work. Ai Weiwei utilizes the global recognition of 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' in his 2023 toy brick interpretation that sets Beijing’s National Stadium in the background.
“The contemporary work included in 'The Crossing' memorializes and responds to the past and also elicits dialogue and imagines new futures for the United States,” said Laura Turner Igoe, Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest Chief Curator. “These artists encourage us to tell our own stories on a monumental scale.”
The exhibition runs through Jan. 10, 2027, and is accompanied by family programming, gallery talks and free-admission days throughout the year.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit michenerartmuseum.org
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