Spencer Finch, Passing Cloud, (394 L Street NW, Washington, D.C., July 7, 2010), 2010, dimensions variable. Fluorescent light fixtures and lamps, filters, monofilament, and clothespins. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin. Photo: Chan Chao.

“I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town…. I saw him this morning about 8 ½ coming to business, riding on Vermont avenue, near L street…. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy going gray horse, is dress’d in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, &c., as the commonest man…. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln’s dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes, always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression.  We have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones.”

–       Walt Whitman, “ Abraham Lincoln,” No. 45 (August 12, 1863), Specimen Days in Prose Works, Philadelphia:  David McKay, 1892, p. 43.

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