Wanted: A Home for the Second Gettysburg Cyclorama
By Deborah Fitts
Feb./March 2005

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wanted: for a six-ton painting of the battle of Gettysburg, a good home.

The giant cyclorama painting, dating from 1883, is one of two existing super-sized circular canvases of the battle by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. One is on display at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. The other is rolled up in 14 cylinders at Wake Forest University, looking for a buyer.

At 376 feet long and 22 feet tall, "It's a magnificent thing," declared Ken Wilson.

Wilson is spearheading the search to place the painting. He says there are "several groups" interested around the country, ranging from commercial or tourism-related sites to Civil War organizations. "It will be a major tourist attraction," he predicted.

The painting was the first of four Gettysburg cycloramas, representing the climax of the battle on the afternoon of July 3, 1863, when Confederates made an all-out assault on the Union line along Cemetery Ridge. Philippoteaux traveled to Gettysburg in 1882 and spent several weeks sketching the battlefield, having photographs made and talking to veterans.

The "Battle of Gettysburg" cyclorama opened in Chicago in 1883 and was such a hit that Philippoteaux was commissioned to paint a second, which went on view in Boston in 1884. This second version is on display at Gettysburg National Military Park. Slightly shorter at 359 feet long, it is nearly identical to the first except for minor details. The other two Gettysburg cycloramas have been lost.

The recovery of the first Gettysburg cyclorama was made by Wilson's friend, the late artist Joseph Wallace King. A world-renowned portraitist, he had a special interest in large paintings and searched for 30 years for the "Chicago edition" of the cyclorama before he found it, in 1965, in a nearly forgotten storage room of a Chicago warehouse.

King hoped to display the huge painting but never did. The Wake Forest art department exhibited a single 36-foot-wide panel in 1997-98, "to show its significance," Wilson said. King willed the cyclorama to Wake Forest upon his death in 1998.

Wilson said that before his death King wrote him a note, "Now let's find a home for the big painting." Wilson said he was made the "exclusive agent" to sell the work by both King and Wake Forest, and he will receive a commission from the sale. He hopes to "persuade" the university to use the income to establish a scholarship in King's honor.

The painting was appraised several years ago at $2.5 million. Wilson said it was "in surprisingly good condition."

He cautioned, however, that the sale price would be just the beginning. It will take another $5 million to $8 million to conserve and install the work, he estimated, and another $5 million to $10 million for a facility to house it.

"It is a very major project," Wilson acknowledged. But he said the time is right. "There's more interest in the Civil War now than there has been in 125 years."

Representatives of the National Park Service traveled to Wake Forest several years ago to view the painting, according to spokesman Katie Lawhon of the Gettysburg battlefield park. "We wanted to learn as much as possible about that version," she explained.

But Lawhon contradicted Wilson's assertion that the park was initially interested in acquiring the Chicago version. "We feel it's a significant painting, and it has a great deal of value in terms of the history of cyclorama paintings," she said. "But we have an enormous project on our own hands to adequately preserve our cyclorama. It's an enormous responsibility."

The park is in the midst of a three-year, $9 million restoration of the painting. At present two of the 27 canvas panels are out being conserved. The remainder will be on display until November, when the Cyclorama will close. The painting will not be on display again until the park's new visitor center and museum building opens, tentatively in 2007.

Wilson asserted that the Chicago cyclorama, with its four tons of lead-based paint, deserves a chance to go before the public again because it depicts an incident in American history that was "second only to the American Revolution" in its importance for our heritage and form of government.

"The color line divided North and South, and we were at odds with ourselves," he said. "The war was fought viciously with massive losses, but we were ultimately bonded into one, the United States of America. Gettysburg was the deciding battle."

Ken Wilson may be reached at (336) 765-5424 or at Enablers3@wmconnect.com.