WASHINGTON -- More than 30 portraits and images of Abraham Lincoln are going on display at the National Portrait Gallery in an exhibit that looks at how the 16th president shaped his public image from Illinois to the White House.
The exhibit "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" opens Friday at the museum in downtown Washington and will be on view through July. It comes just before the city celebrates the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 2009.
The exhibit features the rarely exhibited "cracked-plate" photograph of Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, which was one of the last formal portraits made before Lincoln was assassinated.
Other objects include a campaign pin set in gold and a drawing of Lincoln's arrival in Richmond, Va., just two days after the Confederate government evacuated.
