Alexander Twilight Portrait Unveiled at Vermont Statehouse

Artist Katie Runde’s five-foot tall portrait of Alexander Twilight was unveiled—with a slight hitch—on Thursday at the Vermont State House.

Twilight was the the first person of African descent to serve in a state legislature and to graduate from an American college. He graduated in 1823 from Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

In an earlier post about both Twilight and his portraitist Runde (click here), I noted that both had Upper Valley roots. Twilight was believed to have been born in either Corinth or Bradford, Vermont. Before her move to Middlebury, Runde lived in South Royalton. In addition to her portrait skills, she is also a talented chalk artist who was featured last summer at Nexus Music and Art Festival in Lebanon NH.

Riley Robinson of VT Digger reported that during the unveiling ceremony the curtain caught and the painting precariously tilted. A ladder was required to finish the uncovering. Of the portrait itself:

“Twilight is shown in front of the granite Athenian Hall of the grammar school he ran in Brownington. He holds a Bible in one hand, and in the other, a copy of William Paley’s Natural Theology, a fossil and a daguerreotype of the second Statehouse, where Twilight served one session in 1836.”

Children pictured in the background are Twilight’s students and include girls, as his school was co-educational.

(Thank you, Bonnie Clause, for the photos.)

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Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.