Lincoln, Life-Size
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Running through June 6, 2010
Lincoln, Life-Size is the very first exhibition devoted primarily to this country’s premiere collection Abraham Lincoln imagery. Photographs of Lincoln, digitally reproduced to life size, hang alongside original 19th-century images and artifacts that tell the story of his tumultuous presidency.
The exhibition chronicles the toll of war etched into the face of our 16th president. Life-size inages circle the Museum's Arcade Gallery. Beneath this facial timeline of his presidency is a selection of photographs of people who touched his life and events that nearly wore him out.
The show explores the time from his arrival in Washington through his assassination. The war unfolds, his son dies, and he struggles with generals and mounting death tolls. Lincoln is revealed grappling with emancipation, being pulled in all directions by his constituents, drafting words that would become sacred, serving as husband and father, and ultimately holding the country together.
Highlights of the exhibition include Leonard Volk’s bronze life mask of Lincoln’s head and hands, glass negatives by Mathew Brady, original albumen war prints by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, carte-de-visites of Lincoln, his family, his cabinet, his generals. Viewers can study official government war maps, view a Thomas Nast drawing depicting the slavery issue, and walk around an early “triptych” photograph that portrays Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman depending on where the viewer stands. An oversize “imperial” print shows Lincoln just days before delivering his Gettysburg address. In another imperial print a lab technician’s thumb print obliterates Lincoln at his second inaugural, but what is visible is a spectator in the crowd who appears to be John Wilkes Booth. Another photograph of Booth has these words written on the back side: “Recognize him and kill him.”
Lincoln, Life-Size is the very first exhibition devoted primarily to this country’s premiere collection Abraham Lincoln imagery. Photographs of Lincoln, digitally reproduced to life size, hang alongside original 19th-century images and artifacts that tell the story of his tumultuous presidency.
The exhibition chronicles the toll of war etched into the face of our 16th president. Life-size inages circle the Museum's Arcade Gallery. Beneath this facial timeline of his presidency is a selection of photographs of people who touched his life and events that nearly wore him out.
The show explores the time from his arrival in Washington through his assassination. The war unfolds, his son dies, and he struggles with generals and mounting death tolls. Lincoln is revealed grappling with emancipation, being pulled in all directions by his constituents, drafting words that would become sacred, serving as husband and father, and ultimately holding the country together.
Highlights of the exhibition include Leonard Volk’s bronze life mask of Lincoln’s head and hands, glass negatives by Mathew Brady, original albumen war prints by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, carte-de-visites of Lincoln, his family, his cabinet, his generals. Viewers can study official government war maps, view a Thomas Nast drawing depicting the slavery issue, and walk around an early “triptych” photograph that portrays Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman depending on where the viewer stands. An oversize “imperial” print shows Lincoln just days before delivering his Gettysburg address. In another imperial print a lab technician’s thumb print obliterates Lincoln at his second inaugural, but what is visible is a spectator in the crowd who appears to be John Wilkes Booth. Another photograph of Booth has these words written on the back side: “Recognize him and kill him.”
