The Department of Homeland Security clapped back Tuesday at a Washington Post report about well-known artists unhappy that the Trump administration was appropriating their work to promote white "American heritage."
"Dear, @washingtonpost, add this one to your story. This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage. Get used to it," DHS posted to X, along with the painting "The Birth of Old Glory" by Edward Percy Morgan.
DHS posted three other paintings this month by contemporary artists Thomas Kinkaide and Morgan Weistling, and 19th-century painter John Gast. According to the report, the artwork depicted "idealized images of American life" that are "bookended by posts cheering the administration’s deportation campaign."
The Kinkaide Family Foundation sent the department a cease-and-desist letter demanding it stop using the artist's image titled “Morning Pledge."
The painting depicts children walking to a schoolhouse that's flying an American Flag. DHS added “Protect the Homeland" to the post.
“Like many of you, we were deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS, as this is antithetical to our mission,” the foundation said in a statement it posted online. “We stand firmly with our communities who have been threatened and targeted by DHS.”
On his official website, Weistling protested the use of his work, "A prayer for new life," depicting a pioneer couple in a covered wagon, writing, “Attention: The recent DHS post on social media using a painting of mine that I painted a few years ago was used without my permission.”
Gast's “American Progress,” painted in 1872, depicts white settlers "bathed in sunlight" moving onto Native American land. DHS added, "A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending."
Scholars say the painting was used to illustrate "the concept of 'Manifest Destiny' in American history textbooks," according to the report.
“That the Department of Homeland Security is using the picture for this purpose is so ironic,” Princeton University professor Martha Sandweiss told The Post. “This is an image that’s about the invasion of homelands. When we look at this picture, we’re in the homeland, the imagined homeland of many, many Native tribes. … This is not an American homeland that we’re looking at to be defended; this is an American invasion of other people’s homelands.”