William Blake: Brothers' Bones Beside - Catalog - Page 20
Father Abr a am
Oil on linen | 18" x 14" | 2025
This painting depicts Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 life mask, cast
by sculptor Leonard Volk. Unlike heroic statues, the mask holds
the unidealized imprint of Lincoln’s face in plaster, its weight,
asymmetry, and age. Painted from observation, the portrait
treats the cast not as a relic but as a sitter and a copy.
The painting’s title comes from the Union recruitment song
We Are Coming, Father Abraam which has the lyric that gives
the exhibition it’s title, “To lay us down for freedom’s sake,
our brothers’ bones beside.”. n
18
