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Walker Reader

Emily Sortor

Emily Sortor is a freelance writer and editor based in Saint Paul. Her work focuses on modern and contemporary art and architecture. Emily has interned with the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and Dieu Donné Papermill, and has worked in the studio of Twin Cities artist Adam Turman.

Visual Arts
By Emily Sortor

Allegories: The Memorial Paintings of Jack Whitten

“Through memory we reconstruct our past,” says Jack Whitten. “We honor the dead through memory.” Motivated by this idea, Whitten created a series of paintings honoring key people and events in his life and in American culture, from Lena Horne to MLK, the 9/11 attacks to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that occurred three years ago today. Here, a look at 13 of Whitten’s memorial paintings.