The George Grey Barnard Statue of Abraham Lincoln: In the Eye of the Beholder

Courtesy Wikipedia

(Part two of three. See part one  about the origins of this statue and the disagreement surrounding its creation.)

The dedication of Barnard's sculpture in Cincinnati in 1917 did not settle the questions over his work as new debates soon arose nationwide, and even across the Atlantic Ocean. These disputes over the accuracy and attractiveness of his statue were more widespread than the localized questions about its creation.

As The "Great War" was taking place in Europe and discussion about possible American intervention in the war increased, a debate over image and memory began. The American Centennial Committee existed to commemorate the centennial of the end of the War of 1812 and, to celebrate one hundred years of peace with England, decided to send a copy of a statue of Abraham Lincoln to London as a gift to stand in front of the Parliament building. Even as the ongoing war delayed or cancelled some of the planned ceremonies, debate began about which statue to send. Some people wanted to send a copy of a statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, but others then proposed gifting a copy of Barnard's work instead. This idea ignited an intense scrutiny of Barnard's piece and his depiction of the martyred hero. The ensuing discussion led to harsh criticism of Barnard's sculpture, according to various sources such as this article by Harold E. Dickson.

Critics, including Robert Lincoln, disliked the overall appearance of the statue, including the long neck, slouched shoulders and oversized hands and feet. Even Barnard's casting of shoes instead of boots on Lincoln's feet drew ire. Many considered the statue undignified and ugly.  

Members of the American Congress joined the debate over the appropriateness of sending Barnard's work as the gift.  Many people opposed this possibility due to the statue's perceived ugliness. Robert Lincoln was among those who fought strongly against this idea. He called the thought of giving it to England "simply horrible," according to this link, and pledged he was "doing everything possible" to stop it. He described Barnard's work as "a monstrous figure which is grotesque as a likeness of President Lincoln and defamatory as an image." 

(An interesting suggestion comes from page 75 of the book  Summers with Lincoln: Searching for the Man in the Monuments (2009, Fordham University Press) as author James A. Percoco speculates that Robert Lincoln's disapproval of this image may have been due to youthful embarrassment over his father's appearance and how this work reminded him of that.)

Other descriptions of this monument included: "a mistake in bronze," "revolting as a portrait," "more simian than human" "colossal clodhopper," "a distressing statue,"and (my favorite and almost the title of this post) "misshapen, ugly, comic, cartoonist feet exhibiting plenty of sole, but no soul." The Literary Digest claimed: "people are somewhat startled by the stark realism" of the statue.

Gutzon Borglum, famed later for his work on Mount Rushmore, but who had lost out on the commission for the Lincoln statue to Barnard, also chimed in (probably with a vineyard full of sour grapes), calling it "the Barnard grotesque."

A very thorough and helpful  article by Adam I.P. Smith (which discusses Lincoln's memory/image in England and British-American relations in the early 20th century - it goes well beyond the scope of my posts, but is certainly worth reading) notes that Judd Stewart, who collected Lincoln-related items, wrote to the British Commissioner of Public Works that Barnard had represented Lincoln "as a weakling with an immature body, with atrocious hands and feet, and with a face that...shows an almost painful expression of insipidity and weakness" and that erecting this work in front of Parliament would be "a lasting shame to the donors and to the people of London."

It became known as the "stomach ache statue" due to Barnard's placing of Lincoln's hands on his abdomen, while other people felt it was not "statesman-like" enough. A recent eBay auction of a photograph of the statue described it as "sad, weary."

Screen capture of eBay auction

Despite this, condemnation was not universal, as other people liked it. John Stewart, who, according to Smith's article had suggested sending this statue to England, wrote to the British version of the centennial committee that Barnard's sculpture would be a good choice as it would "present a man and not an idealized effigy."

Barnard's work also impressed Theodore Roosevelt who wrote approvingly: "At last we have the Lincoln of the Lincoln-Douglas debates...This statue is unique; I know of no other so full of life."

Of Barnard, Roosevelt continued: "the greatest sculptor of our age...He has given us Lincoln, the Lincoln we know and love."

William Howard Taft, in his dedication speech, said: "The sculptor, in his presentment of Lincoln, which we here dedicate, portrays the unusual height, the sturdy frame, the lack of care in dress, the homely but strong face, the sad but sweet features, the intelligence and vision of our greatest American. He has with success caught in this countenance and this form the contrast between the pure soul and the commanding intellect of one who belongs to the ages."

Others in the art and journalism worlds also approved of Barnard's work. The North American, a Philadelphia newspaper, wrote of it, in words similar to Roosevelt's, that it was "the people's Lincoln and the people will know it as their own."

At the beginning of the project, the Cincinnati Enquirer expected an "heroic" and "colossal" statue and seven years later used similar language in a highly complimentary article the day after the dedication, calling it "heroic," and "an imposing and impressive work."  In May of 1918, the Enquirer reprinted a Washington Post article which quoted sculptor Jerome Connor as saying that Barnard's statue was "eloquent of power, of will and dominance" and that it demonstrated "the indomitable spirit and will of the Lincoln of history."

In his book, Percoco suggests that this issue was now more than an argument over the sculptor's vision or the statue's attractiveness, and had evolved into "a question of who owned Lincoln's memory. Barnard's vision of a rumpled hick rankled those who believed that Lincoln should be afforded greater dignity in a public sculpture" (page 62).

As Smith's article shows, the question of ownership of Lincoln's memory arose not just in the United States, but in England also. Some Englishmen, like famed Lincoln biographer Lord Charnwood, preferred Saint-Gaudens' interpretation, but others liked Barnard's work. Playwright John Drinkwater wrote of Barnard's statue that "in every basic principle of the art it is as profound and as exact as are the creations of Michael Angelo (sic) himself." Charnwood, Drinkwater and other British writers and thinkers tried to connect Lincoln to England through his genealogy, liberalism and similarities to British politicians, political philosophies and accomplishments of the past.

In early 1918, the American Centennial Committee asked its membership for its preference of which statue to send and the Saint-Gaudens work, featuring an older Lincoln in more formal pose, won easily. Polls by various newspapers produced similar results, with Barnard's creation consistently finishing at the bottom of the contests. Thanks at least partially to pressure from Robert Lincoln, American politicians and groups in England, this committee formally approved the choice of Saint-Gaudens' statue as the appropriate gift. With funding from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a copy of this work was cast and shipped to London, where it was dedicated in 1920. 

Saint-Gaudens statue in London, courtesy Wikipedia 

Thus, most of the controversy over the creation and appearance of this statue had reached its natural conclusion, but a few questions about this work remained. The next post, the final one in this series, will describe those, including the story of the two final copies of Barnard's sculpture. I will then post a separate entry listing the sources I used for this story.

The George Grey Barnard Statue of Abraham Lincoln: Cast in Controversy

Detail from undated postcard, author's collection

Creating a statue to a national hero and giving it as a gift to a city may sound like a fairly simple idea, but even a seemingly smooth path can turn out to be full of bumps, as in the following story of George Grey Barnard's statue of Abraham Lincoln in downtown Cincinnati.

Following up on a recent post about the possibility of this statue being moved within a renovated park, I found some truly fascinating history behind this monument. I learned that a book on this subject already exists, but have not read it, though I may look into buying it. Despite that, I believe I have found enough of the story to share here (so much, in fact, they I have separated it into three posts, plus a separate list of sources, in order to make it more readable.) It is an interesting tale of controversy which mixes memory and image with family, national and even international legacy, along with the question of who decides, creates or controls such historical concepts.

The idea for this statue originated when local businessman, Civil War veteran and Lincoln admirer Frederick Alms passed away. A few years later, his widow thought that donating $100,000 for a statue of Lincoln for Cincinnati, around the centennial of Lincoln's birth, would be an appropriate way to honor both her late husband and the martyred ex-president. She had attorney Harry Probasco create and preside over a Lincoln Memorial Committee, consisting of five trustees (Probasco and four others), to handle this project, in late 1909. The intention at the time was for a "heroic" or "colossal" statue according to the Cincinnati Enquirer of May 18, 1910.

When four of the trustees contracted sculptor George Grey Barnard to create the statue, Probasco, president of the committee and, who, along with Mrs. Alms, preferred to hire Gutzon Borglum as the artist, claimed or threatened to resign his position, though it is not clear if he actually did do. Shortly thereafter, with some question as to whether or not a unanimous decision on a sculptor was required by the committee's rules, Mrs. Alms then threatened to revoke her financial pledge if Barnard was hired. Charles P. Taft, one of the trustees, then decided to pay the $100,000 for it as a gift from the Taft family in place of the Alms family, and "after some rather heated correspondence" according to the Enquirer, the remaining four trustees, including Taft, resigned from the committee. It briefly appeared that Cincinnati might receive two Lincoln statues, one from Alms and another from Taft. Probasco, however, called this possibility "manifestly absurd" but noted that if Mrs. Alms did pay for a statue by Borglum, "it would be so far superior to anything that George Grey Barnard might execute - it would be as the sun at midday compared to a tallow candle."

Barnard, the sculptor whom Taft and the other trustees chose to create the Lincoln statue, was well-known throughout the country, though the linked biography notes that he had "endured a period of rejection due to his refusal to conform to others’ perceptions of what his work should be" early in his career, a foreshadowing of what he called his "journey through the heart of Lincoln." His goal for the Lincoln statue was to make it appear as real and human as possible. A 1916 Enquirer article quoted him as saying "I would not feel that his face could give its message if I had left out a single wrinkle of the network of lines, or even the wart on his left cheek." According to a booklet about the dedication ceremony, he felt that an "imaginary Lincoln" would be "an insult to the American people, a thwarting of democracy" and believed that "the tool Lincoln and God made - Lincoln's self - must be shown." He considered art "the science that bridges 'tween nature and man" and believed in "Sculpture being a science to interpret living forms," so this was the tool he would use to acoomplish his "intense desire to tell the truth about Lincoln's form."

He chose to portray the younger, clean-shaven Lincoln as he appeared before becoming famous instead of the familiar bearded Lincoln. (Perhaps this compares to the "young Elvis" or "fat Elvis" postage-stamp question of a few years ago.) He gave his subject an informal pose and wrinkled clothing instead of an idealized view of a famous leader decked-out in the nicest of clothes and perfect posture.

Courtesy aaa.si.edu

Courtesy Pinterest.com

Once finished, the 11-foot tall statue went on temporary display in New York City. It moved to its permanent home and was dedicated in Cincinnati's Lytle Park in a large ceremony on March 31, 1917 with former President William Howard Taft, a Cincinnati native and Charles' half-brother, giving a dedication speech. Edward Colston, a prominent local attorney who was married to a daughter of former Kentucky Governor John W. Stevenson, presided over the ceremony. Interestingly enough, he was also a former Confederate soldier. Perhaps this was symbolic of the spirit of reconciliation that existed throughout the country decades after the war. This brief article from the National Park Service discusses how reconciliation was a much more prominent theme of the creation of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., (constructed in a similar time period as Barnard's work), than was emancipation.

Here is the booklet about the ceremony, including comments from Barnard, Taft's speech and an acceptance speech from Cincinnati Mayor George Puchta.

"The Unveiling" from the ceremony booklet

The creation of this monument, however, was just the beginning of the controversy. Once the statue was dedicated, the idea of sending a copy of it to England developed and this led to a close review of Barnard's work. The next two installations of this story will explore the various reactions the final product evoked.