“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” (Proverbs 25:11)

This quote was used by Guest Lecturer Philip Kunhardt at The Katonah Museum to either illustrate the words of Abraham Lincoln or Walt Whitman - I was taking notes so furiously that I lost track. What I do know is that it aptly fit Mr. Kunhardt.

Longtime area resident and noted Lincoln scholar and author/historian, Philip Kunhardt, spoke to a full house at The Katonah Museum of Art on Jan. 10. The lecture was to accompany the current exhibit, “Bold, Cautious, True: Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era.” The focus of the lecture was “The President and the Poet: The Converging Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.”

Philip Kunhardt was the recipient along with his brother, Peter, in 2009 of The Order of Lincoln Award from The Lincoln Academy of Springfield, Illinois for their lifetime contribution to the understanding and appreciation of Abraham Lincoln. He has written several books on Lincoln for Smithsonian Magazine, received a grant from the U.S. State Department to speak to audiences in Russia about Abraham Lincoln and has directed conferences on Lincoln, including one at Bard College in March 2009.

He spoke of Lincoln’s and Whitman’s passion, their similarities and their differences. The strongest point was how deeply they admired each other. They also influenced each other. They were passionate about the other’s writings and causes. They never met. Yet there were times when they were in proximity of one another. During the years that Whitman acted as field nurse in the tent hospitals just outside of Washington, D.C. he used to post himself at a corner where he knew Lincoln’s carriage would pass on a daily basis. Over time they began to acknowledge each other with a bow. No one mourned Lincoln’s assassination more publicly than Walt Whitman.

Mr. Kunhardt completed his lecture with a portrait slide show of the two gentleman over the years. Whitman always appeared much older than Lincoln who was 10 years his senior. He had a more rapid decline after Lincoln’s death. Artist Thomas Eakins photographed him during this time and his decline was much in evidence during that visit to his Camden, New Jersey home. Yet he wrote, from that deep well of sorrow his two most famous poems - “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and one known by schoolchildren for generations “O Captain, My Captain.”

History Class was never like this! Kudos once again to The Katonah Museum of Art for bringing such opportunities for an in depth education to the community. I have been rewarded and enriched with a much deeper understanding of the era, the sorrow and the strife that the country endured.

The exhibit continues with tours at 2:30 each day the Museum is open Tuesdays through Sunday until January 24th. Go to KatonahMuseum.org for more information.

Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom