Summary

George Grey Barnard's statue of Abraham Lincoln in Cincinnati, Ohio, which has been alternately disparaged and revered for its generally awkward but thoroughly human portrayal of the former President.

The sculptor was commissioned by Charles P. Taft to create a memorial to Lincoln in Cincinnati to mark the centenary of Lincoln's birth. Barnard conducted considerable research before beginning the statue, as he was determined to challenge the numerous conventional portrayals of the President that had previously been created. Barnard wanted his work to show the people's Lincoln, depicting the man before he became President.

The statue was completed in 1916 and, after being exhibited in New York, was sent to Cincinnati where it was unveiled by William Howard Taft in March, 1917. Later, in response to a desire to commemorate the century-long peace between the United States and Britain following the Treaty of Ghent, Charles Taft agreed to pay for a replica of Barnard's Lincoln to stand outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

However, Barnard's depiction of Lincoln - "the lugubrious expression, the stooped shoulders, the shabby clothes, the gigantic hands and feet" - was condemned as "grotesque and defamatory." Robert Lincoln, the President's son, joined a large group of objectors that deemed the statue unfit for display in London. Instead, it was presented to the city of Manchester where one newspaper proclaimed, "whilst London was to receive Lincoln the president, Manchester had got Lincoln the man; a statue of power and dignity, whose face had that 'something fitted to touch the spirit of the children of future generations like the great Stone face of another American imagining.'" Another paper contrasted Barnard's representation of Lincoln with those "fantastical sculptures which give us heroes in foolish postures, as they never were and never could be." [1] archive copy at the Wayback Machine

George Grey Barnard  (1863–1938)
	Alternative names	George G. Barnard; George Barnard
	Description	American sculptor
	Date of birth/death	24 May 1863	24 April 1938
	Location of birth/death	Pennsylvania	New York City
	Work period	1886 –1938
	Work location	Paris (1883–1894); New York City
	Authority file	: Q339164 VIAF: 64854404 ISNI: 0000000066836549 ULAN: 500000396 LCCN: n85389270 Open Library: OL118040A WorldCat

Photographed 3/19/2006 by Rick Dikeman

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