The Collection
The Gallery
Each figure below inhabits their own room — a distinct visual world built from their era, their city, their medium. Select any portrait to enter and begin a conversation grounded in that figure's complete body of work.
Once inside, look for the chat bubble in the lower right corner of the page to begin ↘
Jane Jacobs
1916 — 2006
Urbanist, activist, and the woman who saved New York from the highway.
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Carl Jung
1875 — 1961
Psychologist, alchemist of the unconscious, and cartographer of the soul.
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Thomas Jefferson
1743 — 1826
Architect of liberty, agrarian idealist, and America's most complicated founder.
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Alexander Hamilton
1755 — 1804
Architect of American finance. Combative, brilliant, killed by a sitting Vice President.
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H.L. Mencken
1880 — 1956
The Sage of Baltimore. America's most dangerous wit, returned to pass judgment.
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John Taylor of Caroline
1753 — 1824
Virginia farmer-philosopher. The most rigorous critic of Hamilton — and the most forgotten.
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Adam Smith
1723 — 1790
Moral philosopher, economist, and the most systematically misquoted man in history.
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William Moultrie
1730 — 1805
He held Fort Sullivan with palmetto logs against nine British warships. Charleston held.
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George Washington
1732 — 1799
Commander, first President, and the only man in history who held ultimate power and chose to relinquish it — twice.
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Thomas Paine
1737 — 1809
Revolutionary pamphleteer, author of Common Sense — the man who told plain people that a king was unnecessary.
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