Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Just about every year my wife Wendy gives me an Abraham Lincoln themed ornament for our Christmas tree. Some of them are Lincoln statue related. Here is a picture of an ornament that she gave me a few years ago. I love the Lincoln cameo look. Very elegant and old looking.

May you and yours enjoy a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Dave Wiegers

2013 Calendar

As many of you know, for the past several years I have assembled an annual calendar featuring my photographs of Lincoln statues.
For 2013, I have decided to commemerate the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address, by populating the calendar with photos of Lincoln statues in Gettysburg along with photographs that I have taken of Gettysburg and  of the battlefield.

Here are just a few examples of some of the months from the desk calendars. If you are interested in purchasing a calendar (wall or desk) just drop me an email. The wall calendars are $12.00 a piece and the desk calendars are $6.00. Add $2.25 for postage and handling.

By the way, the missing Lincoln statue in the previous post was in Sydney, Australia.

Is It Over Yet?

This seems to have been the longest winter I can remember. Illinois was hit with a lot of snow and it just kept coming - foot after foot. As Wendy and I sat holed up in the house most of the past few months we wished that we had decided to take some vacation time and go somewhere warm. No where in particular - the place just had to have sunshine and temperatures above 60 degrees. Maybe 70.

Next year is our 35th. anniversary and we are thinking of reliving a trip we took together back in 1976. We were married in 1977, but the year before we backpacked around Europe for a month and visited many of the places that I had longed to visit since I was a child.

Our favorite place was Greece and we have just about decided to do Greece again though this time I think we'll stay in hotels instead of youth hostels and cruise the islands for a week instead of the one-day 3 island hop out of Piraeus harbor.

As we dreamed of being in the Greek sunshine, we recalled our 30th. anniversary trip - a Hawaiian cruise.

Now, what does any of this have to do with Lincoln statues? Well, many of you may be surprised to learn that there is a fine statue of Lincoln on the island of Oahu not too far from Pearl Harbor. The statueis located in front of the Ewa Plantation School in Ewa Beach. The statue is titled Lincoln the Frontiersman. The sculptor is the late Avard Tenneyson Fairbanks. Fairbanks is one of the more prolific sculptors of Lincoln during the middle of the 20th Century. His most famous work is probably the statue of Lincoln that stands in front of the Visitor's Center at Lincoln's New Salem State Park near Petersburg, IL. The New Salem Lincoln is featured on the U.S. Illinois quarter that was released in 2003. There is a similarity between the two works as you can see from the two pictures. In both works, Lincoln is seen a muscular young man carrying an axe. In the Illinois piece, Lincoln carries books in his right arm and the axe in his left.

Fairbank's strapping young Lincoln was erected at the bequest of the former teacher and principal of the Ewa School, Katherine Burke. Fairbanks was teaching summer school at the University of Hawaii in 1939 and the statue committee approached him about furnishing the Lincoln for the school.

Lincoln has a certain connection and significance to Hawaii. During his presidency Lincoln developed a personal relationship with the Hawaiian king King Kamehameha IV. Several letters written to the King signed by "Your Good Friend, A. Lincoln" are in the historical record.

Fairbanks' 9 foot tall "Frontiersman" was finished in his Ann Arbor, Michigan studio in 1941 but due to the war in the Pacific it was not dedicated until Lincoln's 135th. birthday on February 12, 1944. Every year on Lincoln's birthday the students of the Ewa Plantation School decorate Mr. Lincoln with dozens of multi-colored leis.

Happy New Year!

The day after Christmas, Wendy and I made our annual Christmas trip down to visit my mother and sister who both live in Springfield, IL. The family Christmas was held on Sunday at my sister's home just outside Springfield.

On Monday, I was up early anticipating a day of taking pictures of some of the statues of Lincoln in Springfield that I had somehow missed during previous visits or simply wanted to reshot.

First on my list was the Lincoln by O'Connor on the east side of the Illinois State Capital Building. It was my plan, based on the previous evening weather report, that I would have sun in the morning and it would be striking the statue and painting it with an early morning glow. The weather was just not cooperating and I decided that I would see if the Illinois State Supreme Court Building right across the street was open to visitors. Court was not in session but the building was open to visitors. On the second floor of the 1908 building is a large bust of Lincoln by noted Lincoln sculptor John McClarey of Decatur, IL. The piece is entitled Prairie Lawyer, Master Of Us All. The title comes from a line in the Vachel Lindsay poem Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight. This McClarey work was donated to the Illinois Supreme Court by the Illinois Bar Association and was dedicated in January of 2009.

This statue was particularly hard to photograph. The bust is located in front of a large stained glass window and the light from behind Mr. Lincoln makes it very difficult to get a good exposure. Recently I have been experimenting with a technique called HDR or High Dynamic Range Photography. In a nutshell, using a digital camera, a tripod and special software , the photographer takes a series of pictures using the same focus and f-stop but under and over exposing the subject across a wide dynamic range. Within the software (I happen to use Photomatix software) the series of photos, typically 3 to 5 pictures, are combined. Using this technique, the photographer can restore highlights and shadows; shoot in harsh and challenging light and can achieve remarkable tone and color results.

The situation at the Supreme Court was ideal for this technique and I was very pleased with the results.

After finishing at the Supreme Court, we went across the street to the State Capital to photograph the Leonard Volk statue of Lincoln in the second floor of the the Rotunda. Volk is the same sculptor that did the first life mask of Lincoln.

The lighting in the State Capital is poor at best and again I decided to attempt to capture the statue using the HDR technique. The results were good and I was able to come away with several good images to work with.

The real surprise in the Capital was not the Volk but finding another sculptural work featuring the Lincoln-Douglas Debates that is virtually unknown and appears in none of the literature. High above the fourth floor of the Rotunda is seen a series of plaster friezes that encircle the dome. Little is known about these nine panels, painted to resemble bronze.

The artist was T. Nicolai. I have found little on Mr. Nicolai and just as little on the friezes. The website http://www.ilstatehouse.com/ describes the works as "... a series of allegorical and historical pictures, in bas relief..." The artist reportedly died prior to the completion of the entire work and he left no key to the individuals in each of the none groups. Several of the key characters are easily recognizable - Lincoln and Douglas, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and George Washington.

Besides the above mentioned statues there are numerous others Springfield. There are four statues of Lincoln at nearby New Salem State Park in Petersburg, IL.

The next time you are in Springfield, take some time and visit some of these wonderful memorials and tributes to our 16th. President.

Lincoln in Norway

I came across the above photo on eBay not long ago and despite visiting every imaginable Lincoln statue, I could not place this particular work. It looked very familiar but I knew that I had not visited it - yet!

I watched to see if anyone else was bidding on the item. It seemed no one else was interested in the old postcard. My curiosity was really piqued and my mind was clicking through all of the large Lincoln busts I knew of and I still could not come up with the location.

I thought it had to be one of several Lincoln busts I knew but perhaps the monument had been changed in some way and didn't look like this any longer. I concluded that the statue looked like one I had seen in New Milford, CT by Paul Morris. The time period looked about right. The New Milford Lincoln was dedicated in 1912 and the folks in the picture looked from approximately the same era.

The local Historical Society in New Milford told me that the current monument had not changed since 1912. That was a trip down a dead end street.

The owner of the card told me that there were no markings or writing on the card that might indicate where the card came from. Nothing at all. No help from that quarter.

After bending my brain, it suddenly hit me where I had seen the statue before. This bust was identical to two others that I had seen. One is in Geneseo, Illinois and the other is front of the county courthouse in Hillsboro, North Dakota. I have always considered these pieces very fine portraits of Lincoln but they are virtually unknown.

Where was this one?

Suddenly it came to me!

It was almost certainly the original bust of President Lincoln sculpted by the noted North Dakota sculptor Paul Fjelde. Fjelde had been recommended for this commission by sculptor and art historian Lorado Taft.

The bust that had been given to the City of Oslo by the Norwegian-Americans of North Dakota and Minnesota in 1914 to honor the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Norwegian constitution which had been modeled after the U.S. Constitution.

On July 4, 1914 a committee from the United States had travelled to Norway and presented the people of Norway with this bust of Abraham Lincoln. The postcard that I purchased shows some of the dignitaries and others that attended that 1914 dedication ceremony.

I consulted with North Dakota's liaison to the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and sent him a copy of the picture after it came in the mail. He had never seen this image but the state of North Dakota, in its archives, has images from the 1914 ceremony that show the same basic scene .

There is one very interesting aspect to the story that I should mention. It was reported that during the days of the Nazi occupation of Norway, crowds of fearless Norwegians would gather at the Lincoln bust in Oslo's Forgner Park on July 4th in silent protest.

Mystery solved and I didn't even need the History Detectives.

Additional photos of the Lincoln busts by Paul Fjelde in the United States can be found at my photo web site. The Link to the website is at the top of the page on the right.