Correspondence between E.G. Liebold and Charles L. Clarke regarding Light's Golden Jubilee Banquet Painting, 1936

THF276955 / Correspondence between E.G. Liebold and Charles L. Clarke regarding Light's Golden Jubilee Banquet Painting, 1936 / item1
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Artifact Overview

In the mid-1930s, more than six years after the Light's Golden Jubilee celebration, Henry Ford commissioned a panoramic painting of that evening's banquet. Letters were sent to attendees asking them to indicate on an enclosed diagram where they sat. Charles Clarke remembered his location and wondered whether he could be in the painting, since where he was seated, he was "practically out of sight."

Artifact Details

Artifact

Correspondence

Date Made

07 July 1936 - 21 August 1936

Subject Date

21 October 1929

Collection Title

Location

By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center

Object ID

84.1.1657.7

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford.

Material

Ink
Paper (Fiber product)

Technique

Handwriting
Printing (Process)
Typewriting

Color

Black-and-white (Colors)

Dimensions

Height: 10.5 in (typed letters)
Width: 7.25 in (typed letters)
Height: 10.25 in (seating chart)
Width: 7.25 in (seating chart)
Height: 11 in (handwritten letter)
Width: 8.5 in (handwritten letter)

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    Henry Ford planned the dedication of his museum complex to coincide with the 50th anniversary in October 1929 of Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp. Surprisingly, there were no photographs taken of the Light's Golden Jubilee banquet so, in the mid-1930s, Ford asked his staff artist, Irving Bacon, to capture the event in this panoramic painting, which took over a decade to complete.
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