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THE LINCOLN MONUMENT ON THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY
By Robert I. Russin
Lincoln Herald, Volume 63, number 3 (Fall 1961), pp.119-20.
Internet Editor's Note: Sculptor Robert I. Russin designed and built the colossal monument located in a roadside park on U.S. 30 at a point where it crosses a ridge of the Rocky Mountains ten miles southeast of Laramie, Wyoming. The twelve and one-half foot high bust sits atop a thirty-foot base made of granite blocks. The Sesquicentennial memorial was made possible through the support of Dr. C. W. Jeffrey of Rawlins, Wyoming. In his dedication speech Russin said "I have tried to depict a brooding, contemplative Lincoln in the last years of his life, his great heart sorrowing over the rent of the nation."
Editor's Note: From C.C.N.Y. Russin received the AB and MS degrees and also attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design for three years. In 1954 he studied in Italy and at present is Professor of Art at the University of Wyoming.
Russin's Lincoln bust is indeed a huge monument. Note sculptor at the base.
The monument stands forty-two and one-half feet high.
The Lincoln Monument at the summit of the transcontinental Lincoln Highway in Wyoming was dedicated on October 18, 1959. While it was conceived as part of the State of Wyoming's contribution to the celebration of the Lincoln Sesquicentennial year, the statue was actually envisoned some twelve years earlier when I first came to teach at the University of Wyoming.
The site, at an elevation of almost 9,000 feet, commands a panoramic view of tremendous scope and beauty.A grand wooded valley floor drops away abruptly from the summit to rise again in the rugged upland of the Rocky Mountains. The land has such incomparable sweep and grandeur that it suggested to me the thought of a Lincoln statue. As I stood before the ageless drama of the mountains and the valleys which summoned up the epical meaning of Lincoln, I knew that someday the monument would come into being.
Abraham Lincoln has always been one of the trulysignificant men in the history of progress and democratic achievement.It is interesting to note that during the recent presidential campaign both Kennedy and Nixon frequently referred to quotations from Lincoln as being pertinent to the complicated affairs of today's changing world. Above and beyond the world of his changing philosophy, his personal qualities were such as to evoke a humanistic response in all our hearts. We are all better people in the contemplation of Lincoln, the man.
In creating the image of Lincoln, I have sought to project the image of the President in the last years of the Civil War, his great heart sorrowing for the rent nation. It is his vision of democracy molding this country that gives shape to the plastic forms of the statue. The ruggedness of the modeling grows out of the rugged quality of Lincoln's character. The texture used blends with the granite base and the granit in his makeup. The grandeur of the landscape recalls the nobility of his soul. The immediate site, with strong verticle cliffs of stone, influenced the folds of his face and beard as well as trhe design of the base with its vertical thrust. Every effort was made to make a Lincoln at one with his surroundings.
Technically, the statue was modeled in clay on a fifteen-foot platform at a large studio in Mexico. This was necessary to give a correct perspective of the monument as it would later appear. From time to time I would look at the statue through the "wrong end" of an opera glass to visualize the head at a distance of 45 feet. The modeling had to be so handled that it would be just right in the particularly clear air of Wyoming when the statue was translated into bronze. A plaster cast of 63 parts was then made and the statue reassembled so that it could be restudied and reworked. the plaster sections were then cast separately into wax and from wax into bronze by the age-old cere-perdu process. All pieces were then bolted and welded together, and all the seams were chased to remove any sign of the joints. The workmen in Mexico, at every stage of the work, put forth the very best effort because of their interest in the subject. Lincoln has always been a particular hero to the Mexican, for he personifies the ability of a man of humble birth to become a truly great leader. Further, sympathy of Lincoln for the democratic destiny of Mexico is well known. When in Mexico, I had the priviledge of judging a drawing contest of Mexican school children with Lincoln as the subject.
At every step the revered name of Lincoln made the difficult easy. For example, the Mexican railways transported the hugh crate from the Fundicion Artistica in Mexico City to Juarez in the record time of three days, so rapidly, in fact, that the customs papers had not arrived via letter post. Nevertheless, the statue was put across the border in two hours despite the lack of the usual custom papers.
It has been a great personal satisfaction to have been able to create this monument to Lincoln who has been a lifelong study of mine. Tremendous help and support was given by the State of Wyoming, by the U. S. Forest Service, and by Dr. Charles W. Jeffrey of Rawlins, Wyoming, who supported the work. The site of the monument has been landscaped with evergreens and walks, and when all is complete, my hope is that those who stop and linger at the monument may have the inclination to contemplate the meaning of Lincoln and come away by the nobility of the man.
This bronze head of Lincoln is the largest one in the world and is twelve and one-half feet high. It weighs three and one-half tons and reposes on the top of a column of granite which rises into the air thirty feet.