In 1921, Sargent was commissioned by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University, to paint a mural memorializing Harvard students who died fighting in World War I. Sargent was already working on the MFA murals but completed the pieces over the summer of 1922. Death and Victory and Coming of The Americans hang on each side of the entrance to the Widener Memorial Room. Death and Victory depicts a soldier caught between the angelic representation of victory and the shrouded figure of death, fallen soldiers lying beneath them. Coming of The Americans presents rows of nondescript soliders marching to the aid of three women representing (from top to bottom) Great Britain, Belgium, and France. While Sargent quotes Rubens in Death and Victory, the images draw heavily on the common style of war imagery in pop culture at the time to generate a broad heroic appeal, which some criticized it for. The murals were officially unveiled in a modest ceremony in October 1922.