The Great Uniter

New York artist Robert Terry (1955-2021) was best known for his heavily impastoed land- and cityscapes, but he also had a consuming interest in American history: Terry worked on this series of paintings of Abraham Lincoln over a period of almost 30 years. The portraits are based on130 photographs of Lincoln in existence today.

Lincoln was the first United States president who was keenly aware of the power of the photographic medium and was known to have acknowledged that "Brady and the Cooper Union speech made me president". He posed for these images on historic occasions but also during more introspective moments, many of them taken by photojournalism-pioneer Mathew Brady.

Although the 21 works in the exhibition are based on only eleven different photographs taken between 1858 and 1865 (all of them showing Lincoln dressed in a white shirt, black coat, and bowtie), Terry successfully mediated the mood and implied demeanour of his subject in front of brightly colored or subdued backgrounds.