Image: Nasher Museum of Art, London
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University will present ‘The Declaration of Independence’ from September 24, 2026, through January 3, 2027, bringing together three early printed versions of the founding American document. The exhibition will be on view at the museum in Durham, North Carolina, as part of ‘We the People: A Duke & Durham Initiative,’ a programme marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The presentation includes a rare engraving commissioned by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and engraved by William J. Stone in 1823, alongside broadsides created by Benjamin Owen Tyler in 1818 and John Binns in 1819. The three works are on loan from the David M. Rubenstein Americana Collection.
The Stone Declaration is one of 200 official replicas produced after Adams commissioned Stone to engrave the document in 1820. The copies were distributed to government repositories, prominent officeholders and surviving signers of the Declaration. Fewer than 40 Stone Declarations are known to survive, and one is held in Durham, according to the museum.
The exhibition places the printed objects within the political and historical circumstances of the early United States. The Declaration, drafted in 1776 by delegates from the thirteen colonies, announced separation from British colonial rule and helped initiate the American Revolution. The museum’s account also addresses the contradictions of the period that followed, noting the continuation of slavery and the United States’ forced removal and genocide of Indigenous peoples alongside the country’s growing national pride and political stability.
The Tyler and Binns works demonstrate how printed editions helped circulate the Declaration’s language beyond the original document. Tyler’s version was engraved by Peter Maverick in Washington, D.C., while Binns’s edition was printed by James Porter in Philadelphia. The exhibition identifies these single-sheet publications as historic broadsides that helped disseminate the text to the public.
‘The Declaration of Independence’ is organized in collaboration with Duke Arts and the Nasher Museum and forms part of the wider ‘We the People’ initiative, which includes public events examining the nation’s evolving identity. The museum is also presenting Nari Ward’s installation ‘We the People,’ made from thousands of shoelaces, from August 27, 2026, through January 3, 2027. Installed in the Great Hall, Ward’s work offers a contemporary meditation on democracy, belonging and participation alongside the historic printed documents.
Trevor Schoonmaker, the Nasher Museum’s Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director, said the exhibition would allow visitors and students to study rare early versions of the Declaration directly. “That kind of close looking can spark open, thoughtful conversations about how its ideals have been challenged and how we are still working to achieve them,” he said. The museum is located at 2001 Campus Drive, Durham, and admission is free.
