Whitewashed by
1916, John Singer Sargent wants to do something new. Yet, his friend, Isabella Steward Gardner, keeps lining up more portraits. At a dinner party, the President of the Boston Museum of Fine Art commissions John to paint the museum rotunda. He could, but he has no inspiration. Thomas McKeller, an uneducated Black hotel elevator operator, thrusts himself upon John to be his model. John hires Thomas. In secret...
1916, John Singer Sargent wants to do something new. Yet, his friend, Isabella Steward Gardner, keeps lining up more portraits. At a dinner party, the President of the Boston Museum of Fine Art commissions John to paint the museum rotunda. He could, but he has no inspiration. Thomas McKeller, an uneducated Black hotel elevator operator, thrusts himself upon John to be his model. John hires Thomas. In secret John completes portraits of white men and women using a Black male model and goes on to create his final greatest work, the ceiling at the Museum of Fine Art, with White gods modeled on a Black man. All the while John is drawn to Thomas, they embark on a journey of love, but a journey they must never reveal.