Volume 27, Number 13 · August 14, 1980
The Animal Himself
By Lincoln Kirstein
The Face of Lincoln
compiled and edited by James Mellon
Viking, 201 pp., $75.00
It is rare indeed that there appears a 'picture-book' which in every way, material, editing, production, achieves an excellence worthy of its subject. This monumental gathering of photographs of the most familiar American face amounts to a collective portrait which no contemporary artist caught with lasting satisfaction, and whose two finest sculptures were posthumous.[*] As James Mellon, collector, editor, and patron of this volume, writes: 'In punishing him for having been apotheosized, they [the historians] have refused him the right to be a man.' Ever since martyrdom Lincoln has simultaneously grown nearer and more remote. His credited biographers, Nicolay and Hay, Ida Tarbell, Charnwood, Beveridge, Randall, have enlarged on fact and background, while diminishing his humanity.
Review, 2897 words
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