Looking at Lincoln Teacher In-Service February 25, 2009 Memorial Art Gallery

Looking at Lincoln Teacher In-service February 25, 2009 Memorial Art Gallery

“I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not and yet triumphed. There was something left, so that at the crisis he was big enough to be inconsistent—cruel, merciful, peaceloving, a fighter, despising Negroes and letting them fight and vote, protecting slavery, and freeing the slaves. He was a man—a big, inconsistent, brave man.”

—W.E.B. Du Bois quoted in David W. Blight, “The Theft of Lincoln in Scholarship, Politics, and Public Memory,” in Eric Foner, ed., Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, 273.

“In a sense, Lincoln and image making in America came of age together: the increasing production and proliferation of photographs and print portraits coincided neatly with Lincoln’s political rise and not only illustrated but likely influenced his growing prominence.”

—Harold Holzer, “Abraham Lincoln as Student, Subject, and Patron of the Visual Arts,” in Eric Foner, ed., Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, 83.

Program

Grant Holcomb, Director of the Memorial Art Gallery and Curator of Lincoln in Rochester

“Portraits, Identity and Representation: Lincoln and our Leaders” Roxana Aparicio Wolfe, Curator of Education, George Eastman House

Carol S. Yost, Assistant Curator of Education, Memorial Art Gallery

The Gallery’s 2008-09 school program is made possible by Dominion and two anonymous donors, with additional support from Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation and Hammer Packaging. Staffing support is provided by the estate of Estelle B. Goldman and an anonymous donor for the McPherson Director of Education. Looking at Lincoln Teacher In-service February 25, 2009 Memorial Art Gallery

Follow the Face

How did the image of Abraham Lincoln change from 1860-65? Why? What elements did not change – why?

1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865

Abraham Lincoln, February 20, 1860 Mathew B. Brady Salted-paper print http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln/rise_of_lincoln.html

Leonard Wells Volk (after) Life Mask and Hands of Abraham Lincoln, 1860/1886 Bronze Gift of Thomas and Marion Hawks, by exchange, 98.37.1-2a-b http://magart.rochester.edu/Obj3894?sid=11349&x=186384

Importance of Print and Engravings in “Creating” an Image of Abraham Lincoln

What story is being told? How do the prints differ from the photographs?

Lincoln the Family Man

Anthony Berger of the Brady Studio President Lincoln and his son Tad, February 9, 1864 Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collection, Washington, DC

A. B. Walters President Lincoln and His Son “Tad,” 19th Century Steel engraving and etching Gift of Howard S. Merritt in memory of Florence H. Merritt, 2003.11

William Sartain (engraver) after Samuel Bell Waugh (painter) Lincoln and his Family, 1866 M e z z o t i n t Gift of Howard S. Merritt in memory of Florence H. Merritt, 2003.13

Currier & Ives The Lincoln Family, 1867 Hand-colored lithograph with overcolor Gift of Irene Adams Sillay, 85.68

Others:

Lincoln the Emancipator

Francis Bicknell Carpenter First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, 1864 Oil on canvas U.S. Senate Collection, Washington, DC

Alexander Hay Ritchie (after a painting by F.B. Carpenter) The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation Before the Cabinet, 1866 Engraving Gift of Grant Holcomb in memory of Thomas Hawks, 91.13

Leonard Wells Volk Abraham Lincoln, c. 1891 Bronze Maurice R. and Maxine B. Forman Fund, 2008.29

Hale Woodruff Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln Discussing Emancipation, 1942-1943 Tempera on masonite Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 2002.20

Others:

Lincoln the Icon

Currier & Ives General Grant at the Tomb of Abraham Lincoln, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, 1868 Lithograph Gift of Mrs. Jerome Glaser, 85.36

D.T. Weist In Memory of Abraham Lincoln, the Reward of the Just, 1865 Lithograph with hand coloring Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 2008.14

Bill Mauldin Weeping Lincoln: The Death of John F. Kennedy, 1963

Michael Rogers The Mystic Chords of Memory, 2008 Blown and etched glass Loan courtesy of Michael Rogers, 12.2008La-b

Others:

Resources Available in MAG’s Teacher Resource Center

Fleming, Candace. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2008.

Freedman, Russell. Lincoln: A Photobiography. New York: Clarion Books, 1987.

Giovanni, Nikki. Lincoln and Douglass: an American Friendship. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008.

Lincoln, Abraham. The Gettysburg Address. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.

Lincoln. New York: Kids Discover. Volume 5, Issue 10, December 1995.

Thomson, Sarah L. What Lincoln Said. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

Turner, Ann. Abe Lincoln Remembers. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001.

Additional Resources

Loewen, James W. Lies Across America: What Our Historical Sites Get Wrong. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1999.

Mellon, James. The Face of Lincoln. New York: Bonanza Books: Distributed by Crown Publishers, 1982.

Searl, Marjorie, ed. Seeing America: Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, Distributed by University of Rochester Press, 2006. Includes two essays by Grant Holcomb: “Life Mask and Hands of Abraham Lincoln” (Leonard Volk, 1886) and “Abraham Lincoln (George Grey Barnard, 1918).

Wilson, Rufus Rockwell. Lincoln in Portraiture. New York: The Press of the Pioneers, Inc., 1935 Online Resources

University of Rochester Historical documents, “original papers from the pen of Abraham Lincoln” www.library.rochester.edu/rbk/lincoln

Memorial Art Gallery Selected images from the MAG exhibition Lincoln in Rochester http://magart.rochester.edu/PRT1533

Monroe County Library Rochester Photo Images, historical photographs from the collection http://www2.libraryweb.org/index.asp?orgid=91&storyTypeID=&sid=&

The New York Times “In Admiration for Abe Lincoln,” slideshow of Lincoln impersonators http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/02/16/opinion/20090216_LINCOLNS _index.html?emc=eta3

National Portrait Gallery One Life: The Mask of Lincoln, information, photographs and lesson plans http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln

National Endowment for the Arts EDSITEment: “Picture Lincoln,” lesson plan for grades 6-8 http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=786

The Library of Congress American Memory: “Does the Camera Ever Lie?” http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwpcam/cwcam1.html

United States Senate Story behind the painting First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Painting_33_00005.htm