National Archives, Washington, DC, 1936.
Barry Faulkner was born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1881 and, after briefly
attending Harvard University, studied art in Rome in the early twentieth century. He
returned to New York in 1910 and worked there for several decades before retiring to
Keene in the 1960s. He died there at age 85 in 1966.
Faulkner's 1936 rendition of the Constitutional Convention—coinciding with the
opening of the National Archives—has the delegates standing in an ancient Roman setting
rather than sitting in a Philadelphia assembly hall. Faulkner's portrait of the Framers of the
Constitution was not well received originally. His affection for the outdoors is reflected in
"The Constitution," in which the Founding Fathers are outside, making this painting
different from the indoor interpretations. Indeed, this one seems almost to have been
painted with the out of doors landscape and Romanesque architecture as the main
considerations. There are no tables, no windows, no drapes, and no Philadelphia. Faulkner
was chosen to paint the mural by John Russell Pope, who designed both the National
Archives and the Jefferson Memorial. The mural depicts Madison delivering the final draft
of the Constitution to Washington, so it focuses on the outcome of the Convention
somewhat, but he portrays only 25, rather than 39 delegates who were there on September
17. Faulkner includes the three delegates who declined to sign and he has portraits of three
more delegates who left early so he actually just portrayed 19 of the 39 signers.
There are two murals the other being about the Declaration of Independence. Both were
commissioned in 1934 and completed in 1936, and are about 13 feet high by 34 feet long.
Faulkner painted them in oil on canvas in his studio at Grand Central Station in New York
City. They were then transported to Washington, DC, where they were "fastened to the
Rotunda's plaster walls with a mixture of paint, varnish and turpentine." Faulkner received
$36,000 for his work.
Both National Archives murals underwent a restoration and cleaning in 2001 at a cost
of over $2 million. In December 2002, the murals were reinstalled onto aluminum panels
newly affixed to the Rotunda walls. The panels cannot be seen, but they will make it easier
to remove the murals again whenever they require conservation.