Bust of Lincoln - Bellefonte, Pennsylvania - Abraham Lincoln on Waymarking.com

The bronze bust is the centerpiece of the George Grey Barnard Sculpture Garden located in Talleyrand Park. The sculpture features the bust of Abraham Lincoln without a beard. The bust is mounted to a 5-foot marble pedestal with a decorative fence around it.

"1911 he received a commission from Charles Taft, half-brother of the president, to create a Lincoln statue for the city of Cincinnati. The sculptor studied virtually every known photograph and illustration of Lincoln before undertaking the sculpture. He examined other Lincoln statuary and Leonard Volk’s life-mask of Lincoln. He created “mock-ups” in order to study Lincoln’s image from every angle. As part of that process, Barnard sculpted several larger than life busts from Carrera marble. One was purchased by Lincolnophile Robert Watchorn in 1921. “If a Lincoln statue turns the greatest aristocrat or the most ragged lost soul away, the statue is unworthy,” Barnard declared. “A Lincoln statue should be so conceived that no man or woman could stand before it without feeling, here is one who understands.”

When Barnard’s Cincinnati Lincoln was unveiled in 1917, it sparked a major controversy. Unlike his busts, the statue was derided for over-emphasizing Lincoln’s roughhewn common appearance. It was described as “horrible”, “grotesque” and even “defamatory”. Among the most vocal was Robert Todd Lincoln, who lobbied successfully to prevent a replica of the statue from being erected in London." Link