A lawyer
representing de Blasio wrote a letter to JCOPE
early last month, saying «We will no longer cooperate with what has obviously become a blatantly political exercise by an agency whose very
independence is deeply in question.»
Created between the
early 1800s and the
early 1900s, just as nations in the Americas gained and asserted their
independence, the paintings
represent efforts by explorers and by artists — both European and locally born — to capture and define the essence of a place on canvas, always rooted in the natural beauty of the land.