FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2010
Madison artist Michael Hecht tells the story of Walt Whitman and his Civil War involvement through new exhibit at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum
(MADISON) ― On Tuesday, March 9, 2010, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum will debut “The Good Gray Nurse: Walt Whitman and the Civil War,” a new exhibit by Madison artist Michael Hecht. This is the fourth exhibit of Hecht’s exquisite knife-drawings that the Museum has displayed in the past decade. Much of Hecht’s past work deals with the Holocaust and World War II, but he chose to step back into the 19th century after reading Whitman’s Civil War poems and the discovering the stories of the men that served in the “War Between the States.”
Already a published poet and writer by the outbreak of the Civil War, Walt Whitman, profoundly moved by his southern travels to find his soldier brother in 1862, became a volunteer nurse in Washington, DC treating wounded Union combatants. Using the Whitman’s poems about the Civil War as inspiration, Michael Hecht has created another unforgettable exhibit, layering his own knife drawings of soldiers’ silhouettes over stark images from the battlefield. The exhibit will run through June 12, 2010, while a date for an exhibit closing event featuring the artist and a recitation of Whitman’s poems will be announced soon.For more information on the exhibit, contact Jeff Kollath, Curator of Programs and Exhibitions, at (608) 261-0541. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is a free public educational activity of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs and is located at 30 W. Mifflin St., across the street from the State Capitol. For more information go to www.wisvetsmuseum.com.
-30-
201 West Washington Avenue | Madison, Wisconsin 53707
1-800-WIS-VETS | WisVets@dva.wisconsin.gov | WisVets.com