Watson and the Shark

In Havana harbor a naked boy thrashes in the water as a shark lunges toward him, jaws open, while men in a longboat strain to reach him - one thrusting a harpoon, another stretching out a desperate hand at the very apex of the composition. Copley based Watson and the Shark on a real attack survived by the merchant Brook Watson. Now in Detroit, it was revolutionary: a contemporary, ordinary man made the hero of a grand history painting, the rescue charged with raw terror and a Black sailor placed at its commanding peak.