Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)
Born at Hodgensville (KY); died at Washington, DC.
Woodsman, laborer, farm hand, river boatman, storekeeper, surveyor, lawyer, U.S. Representative and President of the United States.
Artist: Alexander R. James, 1925.
Purchased for the State by schoolchildren, 1925.

This portrait of the sixteenth President of the United States began with the collecting of three thousand dollars in pennies, nickels, and dimes by New Hampshire schoolchildren in 1923. Ten thousand children took part in the effort to procure funds for a State House portrait of Lincoln.

A commission of three was appointed to select an artist for the project. In addition to State Representative John Winant, who was soon to be governor (1925/27), State Senator E. R . Woodbury of Woodstock (NH) and Admiral Murdock were commission members.

The commission chose New Hampshire artist Frank French for the work. French was a member of the National Academy and a portrait painter who had painted likenesses of several State officials; his studio was in Manchester. French contacted Frank McGlynn, a well-known stage interpreter of Lincoln (the play "Abraham Lincoln", by John Drinkwater, had featured Mr. McGlynn, and it had been a big hit). Mr. French planned to work with the actor on the pose for the portrait; then he went to California for the winter.

Within a short time it appears that John Winant changed his mind about the artist. Frank French did not get the assignment. Alexander R. James of Dublin (NH) was contacted, and Mr. Winant produced a bust portrait of Lincoln by William Morris Hunt (1824 - 1879), from which James was to work. The huge (243.8 x 149.95 inches) portrait was completed April 25, 1925. Governor Winant paid James twenty-five hundred of the three thousand dollars collected, and according to Frederika (Mrs. Alexander) James, he asked James to paint his own portrait with a copy for the State House. James instead went to Europe for six months; Governor Winant's State House portrait (in a Lincolnesque pose) was painted by Leonebel Jacobs.

Location: Second Floor, State House, Representatives' Hall