When most Americans see the Statue of Liberty, they see an icon representing freedom.
But how have artists interpreted the statue in the last 150 years?
The national monument’s visual evolution is the focus of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s latest exhibition “The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol” on view through Jan. 3.
Co-organized with the Denver Art Museum, the show brings together nearly 100 artworks from more than 70 artists, including statue designer Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Pacita Abad, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol.
The exhibition explores how Lady Liberty’s symbolism has changed from engineering marvel to patriotism to a beacon of immigration since its inception in the 1870s.
“Regardless of your background, education or if you’ve taken an art history class, everyone has a different relationship to the Statue of Liberty,” curator Andrew Eschelbacher said during an Aug. 13 tour.
If you go:
What: “The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol”
Where: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m, Thursday;
noon-5 p.m. Sunday
Admission: Free
Visions for the exhibition came into focus after the Carter’s 2024 acquisition of a rare cast of the famous sculpture. The show was also planned to coincide with America’s 250th birthday this past July.
Eschelbacher jokingly described the museum’s bronze sculpture as its own version of Helen of Troy — an artwork that launched a thousand loan letters.
Lady Liberty’s torch lit through the decades
The second section of the exhibition, “A National Monument,” features a wall of government posters and advertisements using the Statue of Liberty, from World War I through the 1950s. (David Moreno | Fort Worth Report)
The Statue of Liberty exhibition is split across four sections on the second floor of the Carter: “Creating a Monument,” “A National Monument,” “Reimagining an Icon” and “The Statue of Liberty Today.”
The first gallery focuses on the statue’s origins and initial public reception in the decades between the Civil War and World War I. Maquettes, sketches, paintings and historic photographs illustrate Bartholdi’s early vision of the monument as a testament to the French-American relationship and the abolition of slavery. This section displays period newspapers and paintings from Lady Liberty’s dedication on Oct. 28, 1886.
Materials in the next space explain how the statue became a dominant American icon between World War I and the 1950s. Lady Liberty’s likeness began to appear in advertisements, lithographs and government posters amid global conflicts.
By the ’60s, artists created new ideas around what the monument represented — a point emphasized in the third gallery. Since the statue’s creation, diverse American communities have either felt represented by or excluded from its symbology of freedom, Eschelbacher explained on the tour.
“This tension that emerges about what it is that the Statue of Liberty means is inherent in the object and is inherent in part of the origin story,” he said.
Pacita Abad’s “L.A. Liberty” is displayed in the final gallery of the Statue of Liberty exhibition. The painting is made from cotton yarn, acrylic, buttons, mirrors and painted cloth. (Courtesy | Amon Carter Museum of American Art)
Abad’s 1992 mixed-media painting “L.A. Liberty” reimagines the monument as a brown-skinned woman dressed in a colorful, textured robe to honor the artist’s Filipino American heritage.
The exhibition ends with a selection of works by living artists who continue to illustrate Lady Liberty’s evolving meaning in the 21st century, including Diego Romero, Paola Pivi and Hank Willis Thomas.
Following its closure at the Carter, the Statue of Liberty exhibition will be on view at the Denver Art Museum from March 14 through July 4, 2027.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org. The Report’s arts and culture coverage is supported in part by the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation and the Virginia Hobbs Charitable Trust.
Disclosure: The Amon Carter Museum of American Art has been financial supporters of the Fort Worth Report. At the Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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