Pillars of a Nation by Jim Daly

Edition size of 20,000 S/N; lithograph print
 
Pillars of a Nation is a painting about the experience of emigration. It was commissioned by a man whose grandfather went to Ellis Island when he immigrated to America from Hungary in 1907. Like most of the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, he came with few resources except a burning desire to succeed. Pillars of a Nation is a tribute to that grandfather and to all immigrants who came to North America.

What excited and moved me about the Great Hall at Ellis Island, where the immigrants waited to be processed, was the level and range of emotion that must have been experienced by those passing through inspection. They must have run the gamut of emotions - the joy and excitement of beginning a new life in a new country and all the hopes and dreams of the future. But there was another emotion, too; that emotion was fear - the intense, overwhelming fear of being rejected and sent back. Waiting in the Great Hall they must have experienced the most important moments in their lives. It was these contrasting emotions and feelings that I wanted to portray in Pillars of a Nation. --- Jim Daly