Southborough is blessed with some talented residents. The Boston Globe recently caught up with a couple of them, historical painter Warren Prosperi and his wife and collaborator Lucia. The result is a fascinating piece on their latest work, a painting that depicts a pivot moment in the Battle of Bunker Hill – the battle’s first casualty.
“The First Casualty of Bunker Hill,’’ an elegant, minutely detailed 7-by-10-foot painting by Warren and Lucia Prosperi now filling the front hallway at Vose Galleries, captures the moment: The early morning sun casts a rosy glow as men lean over the dead man’s body, stunned and sickened.
“It seemed like an incidental death. Not the heat of the battle. But after (farmer Asa Pollard’s) death, people started leaving,’’ Warren says. Prosperi is animated, on the edge of his seat in his studio, a former carriage house that adjoins the house he shares with his wife, Lucia, and son, Kit, in Southborough. He’s 62, neatly dressed in a tie and vest on a hot day.
The painting was two years in the making, meticulously researched to ensure historical accuracy. The Prosperis went so far as to stage a historical reenactment of the moment. There Lucia took the hundreds of photos that would become the basis for Warren’s painting.
The Globe article suggests it was quite an undertaking. You can see for yourself in this video posted by a documentary film crew that was there during the reenactment. (Click here to view the video on YouTube.)
“The First Casualty of Bunker Hill” currently hangs at the Vose Gallery in Boston through July 16, along with a number of other works by Prosperi. More information is available on the gallery’s website (www.vosegalleries.com).
very interesting, neat montage as well.