The Eighth Wonder Of The World 

Thomas Blackshear created this striking painting, “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” referencing the classic King Kong film, without specifying the year it was made. Blackshear here engages with a complicated legacy of cultural representation. This image powerfully evokes early 20th-century anxieties about race, masculinity, and the perceived threat to white womanhood. The towering skyscraper—likely the Empire State Building—locates us in 1930s New York, a city symbolizing both modernity and the harsh realities of economic inequality during the Great Depression. The giant ape, often read as a symbol of untamed nature or even the black male body, looms over the city and a terrified white woman. To truly understand this work, we need to explore the cultural context in which it was made. What did King Kong represent to audiences then, and how do those meanings shift when reinterpreted by a contemporary artist? Researching the history of racial stereotypes in film, critical race theory, and the social anxieties surrounding gender and race in early 20th-century America are essential to interpreting this striking image.