25-Foot Lincoln Sculpture Coming to Troy, Ohio

Troy will be filled with visitors of all ages this summer! Building on the rich and successful partnership between the Sculptures on the Square project and artist, Seward Johnson, this summer's planned exhibit will not disappoint.

Troy Main Street will install the monumental-sized Seward Johnson sculpture Return Visit in downtown Troy after the third successful Seward Johnson exhibit in 2013. The previous exhibits in 2003, 2005, and 2013 drew thousands of visitors to Troy and had a significant impact on the local economy. The 2015 display will deviate from past exhibits in that it will offer one significant sculpture, rather than multiple smaller sculptures.

Return Visit is a 25 foot bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and a modern-day man. This sculpture is of monumental scale and has never been exhibited outside of the artist's retrospective exhibit in New Jersey. Troy, Ohio will be the first city in the world to receive the sculpture for public viewing! Return Visit will be placed on display in Downtown Troy on the Miami County Courthouse Plaza area for a period of six months beginning Sunday, May 3rd until the last week of October.

The scholars of the Lincoln Fellowship requested that Seward Johnson create a commissioned life-sized sculpture for the historic Gettysburg Plaza, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Originally, the sculptor was asked to craft a portrait of Lincoln for the square. Johnson decided that he would like to enliven the connection between Lincoln and his ideas and today's world. He accomplished this by adding the contemporary man (rumored to be Perry Como) to the composition. In Gettysburg, Lincoln gestures up toward the window behind which he sat to write the Gettysburg address. The address is reproduced on the bronze paper held in the modern man's hands. In Troy, Lincoln will be gesturing toward the historic Miami County Courthouse. The sculpture was unveiled for the first time in the spring of 2014 at the J. Seward Johnson Retrospective at the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey.

Troy Main Street will open the exhibition with a community party on May 3, 2015. A "Selfie Station" has been designed to allow visitors the opportunity to take a selfie with this wonderful sculpture. Be sure to use the hashtag #LincolnAndMe when posting to Instagram and Twitter.

This exhibit is on loan from the Sculpture Foundation, Inc. and is made possible by a grant from the General Fund of the Troy Foundation. Presented by Troy Main Street in partnership with the City of Troy and the Miami County Commissioners, Sculptures on the Square is a bi-annual public art exhibit in historic downtown Troy. For further information, call 937-339-5455 or visit www.sewardjohnson.com.