What would Honest Abe say?
A mural commissioned for the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum depicts a joyous scene in Washington at the end of the Civil War, but the faces of a few of the 19th Century revelers bear an uncanny resemblance to officials of the showcase 21st Century institution. The floor-to-ceiling painting, titled “Washington Celebrates,” underwent a transformation from the time it was first depicted by a California artist. The clean-shaven likeness of Thomas Schwartz, Illinois’ official state historian, was swapped in for the head of a man with a handlebar mustache. Another man with mutton-chop sideburns was turned into Julie Cellini, the wife of a modern-day Springfield power broker. She heads a board that oversees a state agency that administers the $90 million historical showcase, which will open Saturday. Out-of-context vanity cameos are a part of a grand tradition in the art world. But they are hardly the only examples of how those in charge of a facility designed to tell the most comple
