Join us Thursday, April 3rd for an enlightening presentation and discussion with author and photographer David B. Wiegers on Women Sculptors as featured in his article Wildfire, Miss Clampitt, and the Wonder Girl from the West: Early Women Sculptors of Abraham Lincoln, published in the Lincoln Forum Bulletin Spring 2024 edition.
In the middle of the 19th century, women were not generally a force in American sculpture. Art, and especially sculpture, were a male-centric occupation. Three women sculpted images of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s and 1870s, and each has an interesting story. Two of these women sculptors, Vinnie Ream (Hoxie) and Sarah Fisher Ames, would produce images of Lincoln that would be displayed in the United States Capitol building. A third, Edmonia Lewis, broke many barriers of race and gender to become a well-known sculptor. Each of these women has a unique story and, other than Ream, they have not had their stories widely told.
Lincoln buff and talented amateur photographer David B. Wiegers, has had an abiding interest in Abraham Lincoln since his parents packed him and his 5 brothers and sisters in the family’s Ford Country Squire station wagon to visit Mr. Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield in the early 1960’s. Coupling his long time love of photography with his near obsession to photograph the entire body of Lincoln sculptures and monuments, Wiegers has spent over 15 years looking for Mr. Lincoln’s image and has driven and flown thousands of miles across 35 states photographing and researching all the images of Lincoln that he could discover. His 30th anniversary vacation to Hawaii in 2007 was scheduled so that he could photograph a statue near Honolulu.
Wiegers’ photographs of Lincoln statues have been seen in Summers with Lincoln by Jim Percoco (Fordham University Press, 2008, pages 100-109). American Art Review Magazine featured 21 of Wiegers’ full color pictures in the August 2008 issue of the publication. Wiegers’ photographs were used as illustrations to Jim Percoco’s article Public Sculptures of Abraham Lincoln and in Fred Reed’s books Abraham Lincoln – The Image of His Greatness and Abraham Lincoln – Beyond the American Icon published by Whitman Publishing. Fifty of Wiegers’s photographs, including the dust jacket photograph, were included in Lincoln Hall at the University of Illinois written by John Hoffman and published by the University of Illinois Press. In May of 2022, Wiegers and a colleague, Scott Schroeder of Bloomington, Indiana, published an online Google Map titled The Lincoln Sculpture Project’s Lincoln Sculpture Map on Google.
Wiegers and his wife Wendy, live in Gurnee, Illinois.
Register HERE.
READ -David B. Wiegers Article/ Lincoln Forum Bulletin 2024