The Lincoln Memorial represents Classical architecture.
On May 25, President Biden took aim at four members of the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, bumping them unceremoniously from their posts on the advising body which oversees such important matters as design of federal buildings.
Purging Federal Posts of White Southerners
All ousted members were white men, with two having Southern roots. Biden stated that he would replace these commissioners with people with “a diversity of background and experience, as well as a range of aesthetic view points,” according to a news release from the White House.
Sculpture of Ronald Reagan in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol
Chas Fagan of Charlotte reports he was given only two hours to “resign” from his position, according to The Charlotte Observer, in an article entitled Trump-Appointed Charlotte Sculptor Ousted from Panel. Other artists were treated similarly with total impunity regarding their status as leading artists in America.
Millennium Gate Georgia History Museum
A well known sculptor and portrait artist, Fagan created the statue of Ronald Reagan that stands in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building and painted the official portrait of First Lady Barbara Bush. He has also done portraits of all U.S. Presidents for the White House Historical Association, sculptures of Black female leader Rosa Parks, Elie Wiesel and John Donne in the National Cathedral, statues of Pope John Paul II and the official canonization portrait of Mother Teresa, a horse and rider monument called “The Spirit of Mecklenburg” in downtown Charlotte and others. In addition, he is currently working on a statue of the Reverend Billy Graham for the U.S. Capitol. Graham is known as the greatest American evangelist and considered to have stature of a pope by many worldwide.
Another highly recognized artist bumped from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. of Atlanta, member of a family of renowned artists which has been publicly criticized recently for ancestral connections to a Confederate officer of 155 years ago. Cook coordinated the design and construction of the Prince of Wales’ World Athletes Monument to the 1996 Centennial Olympics Games. With other artists, he designed the 4-acre Millennium Gate Georgia History Museum in downtown Atlanta which features a triumphal arch and sculptures around a lake. He is currently designing a Washington library in memory of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams as well as a “Peace Park” in Atlanta with three buildings and 18 monuments.
Other ousted members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts include Perry Guillot and Steven Spandle, both from New York. Both are architects. Guillot is founder of the Perry Guillot Inc. Landscape Architecture firm of Southampton. He was recently renovator of the Rose Garden and The Children’s Garden at the White House, among other projects. Spandle is founder of Steven W. Spandle
Federal Building and Courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Ala
Architectural Design firm which is known among other things for designing the tennis pavilion on the White House grounds completed in 2020. All members were appointed in the last days of former President Trump’s term of office
National Public Radio reports that of the four ousted commission members, “some… helped to shape a ‘controversial executive order’ intended to promote neoclassical (i.e. , traditional) architecture as the official style for federal buildings in Washington and new federal courthouses elsewhere”.
Replacing the Commission members and appointed by Biden are Harvard-trained Peter Cook, principal at HGA Architects, whose past projects include the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; Hazel Ruth Edwards, a professor and chair of the Howard University’s Department of Architecture; Justin Garrett Moore, the inaugural program officer of the Humanities in Place program at Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Billie Tsien, UCLA, a partner at Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects, whose firm designed the Barack Obama Presidential Center. Two of the new members are African American and one is Oriental American—the diversity stated by President Biden.
Lisa Carol Rudisill, M.T.S., is a magna cum laud graduate of NC State University and Liberty University where she earned a Master of Theology. She writes novels about her family history during the Civil War in North and South Carolina. She is a freelance writer, editorialist and a contributor to The Standard newspaper.
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