in daniel chester french it's a sure bet. that harold holder would be the first person that you call. and we did. so for many years harold was the senior executive of a metropolitan museum of art before moving on to become the jonathan fenton director of hunter colleges house public policy institute. among his many many leadership positions is chairman of the lincoln forum? which were very happy to say is co-sponsoring today's event. herald as authored co-authored edited co-edited well over 50 books. i lost count. most of which are on my shelf by the way. and he has won many awards including. the 2015 gilda lerman lincoln prize the most prestigious prize in the lincoln realm. is also the author of monument man the life and art of daniel chester french who as you'll find out in a few minutes had something to do with this statue up behind me. so the stool expertise in lincoln and art makes them the perfect person to trace the history the art and the architecture of the lincoln memorial. including the seated statue that has cont

so who was daniel chester french?o know, because the statue is far more famous than the statue maker. while he was a college dropout, yankees sculptor, who trained in massachusetts and new york, boston, and italy. he was only in his early twenties when he created his first national icon the minutemen, for his hometown in congress. he works here in washington for a time, but too little acclaim. he had $8 a day to create statuary for post offices and other government buildings. those commissions he had because his father was assistant secretary of the treasury, who is in charge for -- then he did a statue of john gallagher and for the college campus, and later, put beautiful fountain -- at two ponce urkullu, where his collaborator was a young architect named henry bacon. as you can tell from those two commissions, french could do symbolism, and he could do real-ism. very few people, very few artists crossed over between those two styles as beautifully. he could do men and angels, women's angels, and he, a colleague once