The Cooper Union Portrait (Did it change history?)
(Content and Painting by Jim Payne)
On a blistery February day in 1860 Abraham Lincoln stopped in at Mathew Brady’s New York gallery. The Illinois lawyer was scheduled to make a speech that night, his first major address to an easterner audience in his bid to win the Republican nomination for the presidential race. Lincoln had to develop a national reputation before the November election. Having his portrait made by the famous Mathew Brady was a way to gain credibility.
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Mathew B. Brady was a famous photographer and proprietor of the most fashionable gallery in New York City. (More about Brady below the Author/Artist information.)
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When Lincoln arrived Brady welcomed him and his colleagues to the sky-lit studio. Brady was aware that his task was to make the man, look presidential.
Brady began by emphasizing the candidate’s great height so a standing pose struck Brady as most suitable, but the immobilizer the head brace used to keep the subject motionless during the exposure of the plate was too short to reach Lincoln’s head. It had to be on a stool, carefully placed behind Lincoln to be out of view of the camera. Also there was something about Lincoln’s scrawny neck and protruding Adam’s apple that struck Brady as a little too backwoods. Brady asks if he might rearrange Lincoln’s collar. Tugging it upward to hide some of his throat. Lincoln laughed and agreed. Brady also added props that he felt would help his image. On his right side he placed a model of a pillar a symbol of strength and on his left he placed a pile of books.
The speech he gave at Cooper Union that night won over scores of influential New York politicians and civic leaders. The photograph changed the minds of even a greater number of voters. In May Lincoln won the nomination of the Republican Party, and from then on the picture was every where. The “Cooper Union” portrait was widely circulated to magazines, news papers, when it was copied in engravings and printed to millions. What the public saw was a dignified statesman. The Brady studio soon found that there was a huge public demand for the portraits and began printing card size copies, which sold thousands. The Cooper Union speech on February 27, 1860 and the Brady photograph did more to secure his nomination, than any other act. When the election was over, Abraham Lincoln publicly stated, “Brady and the Cooper Union Institute made me president.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ARTIST:
Jim studied his career as a commercial graphic artist for Lily Tulip Cup in Springfield in 1962 and worked there for 36 years. After moving from California in the late 50s, he studied at both Evangel and Drury, where he graduated in ’68, while working at Lily. After retirement, he taught at Springfield Schools, was a tour guide with Fantastic Caverns, and did taxes with his wife during tax season. Both he and his wife Helen (to whom he has been married for over 60 years!) are artists, continue to paint, and have been in several juried exhibits over the years.
In the past 3-4 years, Jim has begun a series of portraits of Lincoln, while delving into some of the stories and histories behind them. “The Cooper Union Portrait” and story above is one of about a dozen he have completed.
MORE ABOUT MATTHEW BRADY (also from Jim):
In the 1840s, Brady had studied the new art of making daguerreotypes with Samuel Morse and developed a successful business as a daguerreotypes portraitist before turning to wet-plate photography. In 1851 he had been invited to display his work at the Great Exhibition in London and received a medal for his portraits.So great was the acclaim that Brady found himself with an international reputation and spent ten months traveling in Europe. It was during these months that he made the acquaintance of Alexander Gardner, a Scotsman and fellow photographer with a reputation of his own. Their meeting soon proved to be significant for both, Gardner along with friends and family had plans to form a Utopian settlement in Iowa. Gardner left Scotland in 1856 to join the group only to find the community already in a state of financial ruin. Disappointed, Gardner headed to New York City and contacted Brady. In short order Brady and Gardner became partners in business. Brady whose vision had been declining continued to work with the clientele but Gardner turned his attention to the practical matters of business. So successful was the team that in January of 1858 another Brady gallery opened in Washington D. C.
