Fall Barnet Scholars Weekend with Dr. Mey-Yen Moriuchi, November 12, 2022

Dr. Mey-Yen Moriuchi, Associate Professor of Art History at La Salle University joined us for Fall 2022 Barnet Scholars Weekend: “The Drop Sinister: Harry Willson Watrous’s Visualization of the One Drop Rule.”

In 1913, Harry Willson Watrous painted “The Drop Sinister: What Shall We Do With It?” a controversial composition that depicts a mixed-race family consisting of a light-skinned Black father, a red-headed mother, and their blond, blue-eyed daughter. Watrous’s family is racially ambiguous and physical appearances obscure the racial identities of the mother and daughter. This lecture will examine how “The Drop Sinister: What Shall We Do With It?” challenges whiteness as an invisible, pervasive category. By interrogating its own capacities of racial representation, Watrous’s “The Drop Sinister” confronts the beliefs and practices that perpetuate racial inequity and prejudice and implicates the viewer to do the same.