Valley City  (CSi)  The Barnes County Historical Society, of Valley City,  has been awarded a special portfolio version of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln” developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The exhibition commemorated the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and opened at the National Portrait Gallery in 2009.

MaskOfLincolnDrawn from the Portrait Gallery’s unrivaled collection of Lincoln portraits, it charts Lincoln’s passage from a fresh-faced Illinois congressman to a troubled visage as he led the fight for the Union, culminating in his grizzled isolation as president. The exhibition shows how Lincoln used the new art of photography to convey his image to Americans, letting them see in him what they most desired. David Ward, historian, is the exhibition curator.

This portfolio version of The Mask of Lincoln gives students in classrooms across the country unprecedented access to the many faces of Lincoln. These portraits invite the viewer to examine closely the complex and mysterious man who came from nothing and was nationally unknown almost to the moment of his nomination for the presidency. Shaping himself to the uncertainties of the present, mindful of his role as the heir to the Founders, it was Lincoln’s ability that led the nation where it never intended to go: from a political crisis over states’ rights to the revolutionary act of abolishing slavery.

Approximately 5,000 copies of the 10-portrait set were distributed at no cost to schools, libraries, and educational institutions, through various partnerships including the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, the American Library Association, and the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Geared to middle-school and high-school students and teachers of history and American Studies, the portfolio sets will provide a long-lasting and visually attractive complement to libraries and classrooms.