Lincoln

Gutzon Borglum sculpted several portraits of Abraham Lincoln, including the monumental head carved into Mount Rushmore, a full-length statue for the front of the courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, and a colossal marble head for the U.S. Capitol. To understand his subject’s character, he examined photographs of Lincoln’s face, read extensively about the former president, and studied the famous life mask created by sculptor Leonard Volk in 1860. Here he presents Lincoln as a dignified man, weathered by the events of his life and career.

“No man has ever been more ridiculed about his face, his figure, his manners. Yet there never was a kinder man, a more just man, and I ask of you could he have ever been all these things and not have some evidence of it in his face, in his manners, in his general appearance?” Gutzon Borglum, 1915