Half a Lincoln is Better than None?
As a follow-up to a New York Times article about Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier photograph from the Spanish Civil War, which apparently could not have been photogarphed where and when it was supposed to have been, the Times put together a brief “History of Photo Fakery”, which includes this print, which was made by grafting Lincoln’s head onto an existing print of John C. Calhoun. This was not an unusual practice in printmaking and to be honest I’m not really sure that I could call it “fakery.” However, it is particularly amusing given that Lincoln differed rather substantially (shall we say) from Calhoun in his political views–Calhoun was at the forefront of the Nullification Crisis of 1832, when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over tariffs, and and was one of the main architects of the Southern political ideology and the Southern defense of slavery as a “positive good” for all involved, including the slaves.
Another Lincoln image that was made by reworking an older print is the memorial “Apotheosis of Lincoln”, which was cribbed from James Barralet’s 1802 print “the apotheosis of Washignton.” But since Lincoln liked Washington much more than he liked Calhoun, somehow it seems a bit better.
If this sort of adaptation interests you, you might enjoy the Rosenbach’s upcoming exhibit “Friend or Faux: Imitation and Invention from Innocent to Fraudulent” which opens on November 11 and explores the realm of copies, forgeries, reproductions and adaptations. Join the Rosenbach’s mailing list to keep up to date on this exhibition and all the cool programs we’ll be hosting around it.
