Monday, September 1, 2008

Grant Park (Sitting Lincoln - by Augustus Saint Gaudens)




Sitting Lincoln - by Augustus Saint Gaudens




Sitting Lincoln Monument 
- by  Augustus Saint-Gaudens (sculptor) & Stanford White (architect)
designed the enormous 150-foot semi-circular exedra.

Unveiled: 1926 

Location: North President's Court, Grant Park

A gift to the city of Chicago by John Crerar, who left a $100,000 bequest in 1889 to construct a Lincoln statue. His trustees commissioned the sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens to create this tribute.





 

Sitting Lincoln - by Augustus Saint Gaudens



 
The "Seated Lincoln" evokes a sense of loneliness that burdened Lincoln at the time of the Civil War. The sculpture was cast in 1908. However, the monument was not installed in 1926. In the interim period, the Seated Lincoln was displayed at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 1915 San Francisco Exposition. Finally, in 1926, the South Park Commissioners installed the bronze figure and its enormous 150-foot-wide marble exedra, by architect Stanford White.











 
"Standing Lincoln" and "Sitting Lincoln"
The above-mentioned statue at the Grant Park is often called as the "Sitting Lincoln" ... to differentiate it from another famous statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Park called as "Standing Lincoln" ... and this is also by the same sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the same architect Stanford White ... For more on "Standing Lincoln" ... click here ... 






For more on Public Art in the Grant Park ... click here..

For more on Grant Park ..
# Public Art in the Grant Park .. click here ....
# Gardens in the Grant Park .. click here ..
# Often overlooked but remarkable features like pedestrian crossings, the railway lines underneath, the street lamp posts, balustrade, corbels, the Y-symbols .. click here ..
# For a brief history of Grant Park .. click here ..

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