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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
Leonard Wells Volk (November 7, 1828 - August 19, 1895) was an American sculptor. He is most famous for making a life mask of American President Abraham Lincoln. Biography He was born at Wellstown (now Wells), Hamilton County, New York. He first followed the trade of a marble cutter with his father in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1848 he opened a studio in St Louis, Missouri, and in 1855 was sent by his wife's cousin, politician Stephen A. Douglas, to Rome to study. Returning to America in 1857, he settled in Chicago, where he helped to establish the Academy of Design and was for eight years its head. Among his principal works: * the Douglas monument at Chicago, Illinois In 1860 he made a life mask of Lincoln, of whom only one other was ever made (by Clark Mills in 1865). His son, Stephen Douglas Volk (1856–1935), figure and portrait painter, who studied under J. L. Gerome in Paris, became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1880 and of the National Academy of Design in 1899. Lincoln and Volk In the early part of spring in 1860, during Abraham Lincoln's visit to Chicago, Volk asked him to sit for a bust. When Lincoln agreed, the artist decided to start by doing a life mask. Lincoln found the process of letting wet plaster dry on his face, followed by a skin-stretching removal process, "anything but agreeable." But he endured it with good humor, and when he saw the final bust, he was quite pleased, declaring it "the animal himself." Volk later used the life mask and bust of 1860 as the basis for other editions, including a full-length statue of Lincoln. See File:Abraham Lincoln life mask.jpg A couple of months later in mid-May 1860 Volk arrived in Springfield for the purpose of presenting the Lincolns with a completed cabinet bust of Lincoln taken from previously made life mask. Lincoln had just received the nomination as the republican party's candidate for president. The following day Volk requested taking a casting of both of Lincoln's hands to use for other sculptural works. Volk wanted Lincoln to hold something in his right hand to simulate the grasping of a document. Lincoln went back to his tool shed and minutes later came back with a sawed and whittled piece of broom handle. The casting for Lincoln's right hand was made with the broom handle clutched in his grasp. The casting for Lincoln's left hand was made slightly gripped and empty of content. References * This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. Artist Index ==--==--==
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