Heinz History Center asks local artists to envision 'My America'

As 2026 draws closer, more and more signs of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday are popping up throughout Western Pennsylvania.

In Westmoreland County, two replicas of Pennsylvania’s iconic Liberty Bell were unveiled in Greensburg and Murrysville, decorated by local artists to mark the country’s semiquincentennial.

In Allegheny County, the Heinz History Center commissioned members of the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators to create nearly 60 pieces giving their thoughts and interpretations of what the country means to them. The exhibit, unveiled this fall, is called “My America: An Illustrated Experience.”

The pieces cover a wide range of expression. William Panos’ “American Allegory” uses simple lines and curves to depict George Washington, using cherries for his eyes and placing a framed illustration of the Washington, D.C., monument named in his honor. Abby Winkler’s “Daisy Lampkin” uses small illustrations of real Pittsburgh Courier front pages, civil rights buttons and slogans to build a portrait of Lampkin, the Pittsburgh suffragist and civil rights activist.

Fred Carlson of Monroeville, who has several pieces in the exhibit, drew from a variety of historical sources. One of his pieces shows 18th-century surveyor and Anglican minister Christopher Gist and a Native American, marking one of the first Christmas services in the region, performed by Gist in the company of Native Americans and French and Irish fur-trappers.

“I was on the team that designed the prospectus for artists, and we wanted a prompt that would really speak to all the illustrators,” Carlson said.

One of Carlson’s other pieces draws on actual passages and phrases in the diary of his ancestor, William Hilton I, who arrived at the New Plymouth colony in New England in 1621, and in addition to keeping a diary, wrote home to his family about the animals, people and things he’d seen in the New World.

“Everyone who came to what would become America met this amazing bounty of natural resources,” Carlson said. “And it’s kind of the undercurrent of why America has been so prosperous over the years. But we’re also charged with being good stewards of those resources.”

As George Schill was coming up with concepts for his piece, he found himself coming back time and again to the problem of gun violence, in particular the trope that in the wake of many shooting incidents, politicians offer “thoughts and prayers” but little in the way of meaningful action.

“It was more of an editorial piece, and I wasn’t sure if they’d accept it at first,” Schill said of his rendering of an American flag riddled with bullet holes, whose stars are Christian crosses and whose bright red stripes are bleeding.

“My approach was trying to show the frustration people have with American gun laws, and the solution so often being this notion of sending ‘thoughts and prayers,’ ” he said.

Other highlights of the exhibit include:

• Portraits of beloved Pittsburghers such as environmentalist Rachel Carson and television host Fred Rogers.

• A large-scale sculpture of 50 historical figures, including the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima, highlighted by imagery of Americans through time.

• Illustrations of iconic places, from Plymouth to Pittsburgh neighborhoods, that explore the meaning of home and community.

• Hands-on interactive elements that invite attendees to create their own art, from designing a felt flag to piecing together a puzzle that reflects their own vision of America.

The exhibit, in the center’s Barensfeld Gallery, also marks the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators’ 30th anniversary.

”My America” will be on view through Sept. 8 at the center, 1212 Smallman St. in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.

For more, see HeinzHistoryCenter.org.