Intermediate graphic design students create Lincoln display in the Etherredge Center Gallery
Dr. Michael Fowler and his intermediate graphic design students have designed an exhibit capturing the design and inspiring effects of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. This inspiring display is currently open to the public in the Etherredge Center Gallery. A gala to highlight the exhibit will be held Tuesday, March 29 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Etherredge Center, which will be free to students and the public.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Lincoln Memorial. Architect Henry Bacon oversaw the design of the structure itself while Daniel Chester French designed and oversaw the construction of the large chair and figure of President Abraham Lincoln. Numerous artists, poets and skilled laborers worked for eight years to complete the 27,226 square feet structure.
This is not Fowler’s first exhibit featuring President Lincoln. Fowler has displayed three other exhibits on President Lincoln. “My interest in Lincoln goes back to the 1960s when, as a teenager, I inherited an 1864 National Union ticket from my grandmother. The ticket at this time was the way the public cast their ballot for presidential candidates,” Fowler explained.
One of the centerpieces of this exhibit is one of Fowler’s favorite audio recordings of a performance by Marian Anderson, an African-American singer who performed from 1925 to 1965. Anderson was famously denied the opportunity to sing at Constitution Hall in 1939 and was offered the chance to sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial instead.
“Since the Lincoln Memorial is celebrating its centennial year, I thought it would be appropriate to remind people about the way the memorial has been used over its lifetime as a stage setting for both public patriotic and cultural events as well as for private meditation regarding Lincoln and his legacy,” Fowler related.
Fowler has written a book with more information about Lincoln titled, “Calling the Fleeting Breath: Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Personae Through Art and Material Culture” which is available here.
