Contact: Harriet Laird
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State Libraries is unveiling a rare, limited edition bronze sculpture next week before it becomes a permanent addition to the university’s Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana.
On Thursday, Oct. 28, at 11 a.m., MSU Libraries is welcoming one of the collection’s donors during homecoming week to reveal “Moody, Tearful Night,” an almost 3-feet-tall depiction of a fatally wounded Abraham Lincoln being carried from the Ford Theatre after being shot by John Wilkes Booth. Sculptor Richard Masloski’s work realistically shows Union soldiers transporting Lincoln, making their way to a rooming house across the street where hours later he died.
MSU Libraries Associate Dean Stephen Cunetto said, “We’re very grateful to the Williams for adding this monumental piece to their collection here at Mississippi State. Their gift of this extraordinary bronze elevates even further the significance of their collection, and we’re so fortunate they entrust MSU Libraries to showcase and preserve it.”
The unveiling will take place just outside the U.S. Grant Presidential Library on the fourth floor of Mitchell Memorial Library. The brief event will include the sculpture’s contributor and university supporter Frank Williams and MSU President Mark E. Keenum. It precedes the Frank and Virginia Williams Lecture Series on Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies at 1 p.m. in the library’s John Grisham Room featuring Jonathan W. White, associate professor of American Studies at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University.
The bronze, limited edition statue is by the late Masloski, best known for his life-size works in New York State such as “Abraham Lincoln in Peekskill,” “Orange Veterans Memorial” in Newburgh and “War Memorial” in Wappingers Fall. His 2018 obituary in the Middletown Times Herald-Record said, “He devoted his entire artistic life to consistently strive to accurately capture the American experience…”
For Williams Collection tour information, visit www.library.msstate.edu/williamscollection.
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