“In this series of books, drawings, and paintings, I am exploring aspects of American history and legend that still haunt the present, including concepts like manifest destiny and the persistence of American exceptionalism. The print aspect of the project, six hand-silkscreened books (of which four volumes are completed), was inspired by the woodblock prints of the great 19th-century Japanese artist Taiso Yoshitoshi and his masterwork One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. While his subjects were famed Samurai warriors, tragic lovers, and notorious villains, my analogs are U.S. presidents and other political provocateurs, American wars, civil rights battles, and human-wrought climate catastrophe.

In Volume 4, as the curtain of history begins to close on the Cold War and open onto John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, the emergence of prophet-leaders like JFK and MLK offers a glimmer of hope for progress toward social justice and equity. But the malignant, cynical swamp of political opportunism, greed, and fear-mongering and the bog of ignorance and hidebound tradition threatens to engulf the city on the hill.”
— David Sandlin, September 2021, New York, New York

Previous Volumes: I: In the Beginning, II: From the Golden Age to the Gelded Age, III: Mythic Heroes, Mythic Villians.