Happy Holidays!
It took nearly one year (starting in 1939) for the sculptor, Avard T. Fairbanks to create and sculpt the figure of President Lincoln. Much of the modeling of the statue was done in the evening, after Fairbanks was done teaching classes at the University of Michigan. He worked in an old condemned auditorium on campus. As the work proceeded in the evenings, bats would come out of hiding and fly overhead sometimes starling the sculptor who was working down below on the clay model.
Fairbanks researched historical materials in libraries on Lincoln and he found useful cartoons used by political cartoonist of the day as a source for depicting costumes. Museums were visited and Lincoln scholars were consulted. He also researched rail axes and wanted to sculpt the ax that Lincoln would hold as accurately as possible. Apparently there were different “types” of axes used and not just any ‘ole ax would be historically accurate. Fairbanks was able to obtain cast copies of the life masks and hands cast by Leonard Volk of Lincoln. These were carefully studied so that facial details were accurately portrayed.
Fairbanks started his work by making a model of Lincoln which was 12 inches tall. This model allowed him to perfect the pose and work on angles and gestures. When he was satisfied with this pose, he then made a larger 30 inch model and another at 48 inches, all the while fine tuning and tweaking as he sculpted. Fairbanks made four models total in which the final larger-than-life heroic size sculpture was based upon.
It took a ton of clay all hand made (mixed water and clay) to complete the figure of Lincoln. Each evening when Fairbanks was done sculpting, the clay figure was wet down with water using a spray apparatus and covered with a tent-like canopy to prevent drying and cracking.
When the statue was finished in clay, the task of making a plaster mold was next. Many weeks of labor were devoted to the making of the plaster mold during the summer and fall of 1941. The mold was cut into pieces and prepared for the castings, and was crated for shipment to an Eastern coast bronze foundry where the statue was cast in bronze. All of this took place just prior to the world shaking event of December 7, 1941. Lincoln the Frontiersman was the last large monument to be made in bronze before the government restricted the use of copper which is a metal used to make bronze. The casting of the statue proceeded according to schedule, but shipment to Hawaii was delayed due to the needs of ship cargo space for war material. The statue arrived in Honolulu in 1943 and six months later a block of rainbow granite was put in place upon which the statue was to rest.
At 10:30 a.m. on the morning the 135th anniversary of the birth of the Great Emancipator, the pupils of Ewa Public Schools and their families and friends gathered for the dramatic unveiling. The program opened with the music of the Civil War period played by the Royal Hawaiian band. The children of Ewa School, the beneficiaries of Mrs. Burke, sang Julia Ward Howe’s immortal “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” As the result of one woman’s dream to see a sculpture of President Lincoln at the school and one sculptor’s vision in creating a memorable image of the President, the gift of sculpture came to be a reality for people of Hawaii.
References and text from Abraham Lincoln Sculpture, Created by Avard T. Fairbanks, Compiled by Eugene F. Fairbanks. Copyright 2002.
