I own hundreds of books on sculpting practices and sculpture and recently purchased one more to add to my collection titled: Abraham Lincoln Sculpture, Created by Avard T. Fairbanks. Fairbanks created several renditions of President Lincoln during his career as a sculptor, one of which was installed at Ewa Plantation School on Oahu, Hawaii.
Apparently, while teaching summer school at the University of Hawaii in 1939, this forty-two-year-old professor of fine arts came to the attention of a committee seeking a sculptor to create a Lincoln statue for the Ewa Plantation School pursuant to a bequest by a former teacher and principal, Katherine Burke.
Because Burke's estate was small, other sculptors had declined the project, as the pay was insufficient. But when an unsolicited invitation came to Fairbanks in spring 1940 after he had returned to his academic post at the University of Michigan, he was intrigued by the opportunity despite the tight budget. How, he wondered, could an appropriate statue of Lincoln be created for Ewa Plantation School?
One day in June, after university classes were over, he received a call that his ailing father was dying. He hurried to his father's home but was too late. While awaiting the funeral, he pondered the Lincoln statue. "My first impression was to make a statue of Lincoln in his frock coat as the President of the United States," he later recalled. "The long lines of the trousers and the coat seemed rather appealing from just the standpoint of the lines." Another thought was to have Lincoln wearing a shawl, but Fairbanks decided that would never do for the semitropical climate of Hawaii. Then he considered the hopes of the schoolteacher benefactor, Katherine Burke, and her desire to inspire students. "To make him as a youth seemed to gain the attention of my thoughts," he said.
One day while still in mourning at his father's farm, Fairbanks took an ax and went into the field to clear some old trees and stumps. As he worked, he thought of the Lincoln statue. As a youth Lincoln had used an ax. He had experienced sorrows and hopes. He was strong and he could work well. He worked with a purpose, and he cleared the fields and forests for new growth and new developments. As he developed strong in body, he also was developing strength in character and mind. He had to cut his way through.... He was a frontiersman! "It was there," Fairbanks later said, "that the inspiration of Lincoln as a youthful frontiersman, with an ax in hand, came to me."
Fairbanks returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and set about making sketches of the idea, first on paper and then in small bits of clay. He submitted the sketches to the committee in Hawaii. He also presented a demonstration lecture to the Detroit Lincoln Group, the nearest Lincoln association, to seek their input. During a discussion of sculpture details and historical background, he molded a two-foot-tall statuette. The concept of a young Lincoln, a figure in action, for a school in Hawaii was received with enthusiasm. There were many portrayals of Abraham Lincoln, but few if any depicted him as a frontiersman, a neglected period of his life.
Fairbanks sent photographs and sketches of the proposed monument to the committee in Hawaii. They were pleased with the plans. He then made a four-foot-tall model cast. Again it met with committee enthusiasm. With that approval, he began the heroic, nine-foot-tall statue. He preferred the heroic size - one-and-a-half scale - because life-size figures on a pedestal appeared too small. Fairbanks began using an abandoned auditorium in one of the oldest campus buildings at the University of Michigan as a studio. The beams were calculated to be able to support the weight of armature, clay, plaster of the cast, and of the mold. Work progressed after classes, evenings, and on weekends. The final model was completed in June 1941 and went on display during the week of university commencement exercises and alumni sessions.
A visiting member of the Hawaiian committee gave final approval, and casting in plaster began within days. Newspaper publicity of the project brought national attention. A critic declared that Fairbanks had "put America in Abraham Lincoln as few other artists have ever done." Fairbanks made him "powerful, alert, aggressive," and with eyes through which Lincoln visualized far ahead to the blessings of "a free and united nation."
The making of the mold and the cast took a large part of the summer. Finally, the cast was complete but in sections. It was boxed and sent to the Roman Bronze Company, a foundry in Corona, New York. World War II was raging in Europe, and there was concern that restrictions on non-military uses of copper, a major ingredient of bronze, would stall the project. But late that year the statue was cast before restrictions were placed. Delivery of the statue to Hawaii was delayed by the Pearl Harbor attack, as only high-priority cargo was allowed to be shipped.
It was not sent until 1943. The heroic bronze monument was erected on a base of rainbow granite, and the dedication was arranged for February 12, 1944, the 135th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. As reported in the local newspaper, the dedication of the Lincoln stature was an important day for the Ewa school, the city of Ewa, and the island of Oahu.
Part II will look at Mrs. Burke's reasons for wanting a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln installed at the Ewa Plantation School.
References and text from Abraham Lincoln Sculpture, Created by Avard T. Fairbanks, Compiled by Eugene F. Fairbanks. Copyright 2002.
