Publisher’s Note: The following article, published in the Feb. 22, 1907 edition of The News Messenger highlights the artwork of a Marshall High School graduate, Benjamin Eggleston, who had recently completed a renowned portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A portion of this article will be featured in the new book: “The Sesquicentennial: Cultivating 150 Years of History in Marshall and Lyon County.” Books can be ordered for $44.95 by calling The Independent or filling out the form included in an advertisement in today’s paper.
(Feb. 22) — We have before alluded to the prominent position attained by Benjamin Eggleston as an artist, and now record with pleasure the reception of his masterpiece, a life size portrait of Lincoln, which was presented to the Lincoln Club of Brooklyn, at its banquet on the anniversary event.
Eggleston is a Minnesotan, and in the seventies lived with his father in the town of Westline, just over the boundary of Lyon county, and during his youth he attended the public schools in Marshall. His father, H. N. Eggleston, was a man of rare intelligence and ability, commanding the esteem of the early settlers in Lyon and Redwood counties. He removed from here to Ohio in the early eighties, but previously, we believe, his son Benjamin had gone to Minneapolis, where he studied his chosen profession. The young man’s first drawings that were given public attention were made for the News-Messenger. Realizing his marked talent, the editor of this paper encouraged him to submit several specimens of his work, which were sent to one of the leading papers in Minneapolis, with a view to securing for him an opportunity to enlarge his efforts and meanwhile find remuneration for his work. He soon became engaged with the Minneapolis Tribune as a staff artist, and progressed with his studies in the School of Fine Arts in that city.
The Minneapolis Tribune of last Sunday devoted considerable space to Mr. Eggleston, through the correspondence of its Brooklyn department, which we are pleased to reproduce herewith:
“One of the most notable events held in the city of Greater New York last week was the Lincoln day banquet of the Lincoln club of Brooklyn. It lays claim to this preeminent distinction because of the presentation of a new and original portrait of the martyred president by a number of the club members. The presentation of this picture is of interest to Minneapolitans because the picture is the genius of Benjamin Eggleston, who secured his art education in the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts.
Eggleston is a native of Minnesota, having been born forty years ago in Belvedere. Upon graduating from the common schools of Marshall, he went to Minneapolis and took up the study of art under Douglas Volk, who had just founded the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. This school was then quartered in a duplex frame dwelling on Hennepin avenue, near Eleventh street.
For some time Eggleston has not painted many portraits, but he is again being deluged with orders. His latest effort — the seven-foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln, he claims to be his best. Indeed, it is a notable addition to Lincolniana. It is a copy of no other picture of the great president. It is rather a composite of many. He spent a whole year in completing the work, of which but the last three months were spent in actual work upon the canvas.
In painting the picture, Eggleston had the benefit of the suggestions of Charles A. Tinker, who knew Mr. Lincoln personally. Mr. Tinker during the war was a telegraph code operator in the war department. Subsequent to the war he rose to be general superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph company.
In alluding to Eggleston’s portrait of Lincoln last Tuesday night at the banquet, Mr. Tinker said:
“I think this picture is a remarkable likeness of my old friend. It is natural and perfect — an exact reproduction of the man as I knew him.”
In his speech of presentation to the club. James J. McCabe, chairman of the portrait committee, said of the artist. “Now a word about the artist. Eggleston was born in that faraway state of Minnesota, of which his father was one of the pioneers. He was far removed from the artistic centers of the country, yet the longing for the beautiful and the desire to reproduce it on canvas so imbued the young Minnesotan that when he arrived at the proper age he studied art and has been wedded to art ever since. Although a native of a Western state, we of Brooklyn claim him as our own.
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1907: Eggleston Achieves a National Reputation as an Artist - Marshall Independent
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