Wax Statue of Abraham Lincoln Literally Loses Its Head amid Soaring Heat Wave in D.C.

“I also wax like Lincoln.” Meeeee too, said a person on social media.

Not even an Abraham Lincoln wax figure can withstand the sweltering summertime temperatures.

 

The 3,000-pound sculpture outside Garrison Elementary in Washington, D.C. began to melt over the weekend due to temperatures that reached almost triple digits, according to USA Today, the BBC, and Newsweek.

Lincoln’s head went first, then a leg and a foot, according to the BBC. Eventually, the staff of CulturalDC, the nonprofit that had commissioned the statue, “purposely removed” the statue’s head to “prevent it from falling and breaking.”

 

Although the statue, officially named “40 Acres: Camp Barker,” was always meant to “be burnt like a candle and to change over time,” the group said in a statement on their website that the intense heat undoubtedly had a toll on it.

“Lincoln has slumped into his chair more than ever anticipated with this record-level heat,” the organization wrote on social media. “All that wax is leaning back as 2024 draws near and our planet warms even more.”

With an eye toward the future, the group asked, “But who really will be?” they were unable to “guarantee he’ll be sitting up straight for the months ahead,” they later said.

 

Many jokes on the internet have cruelly targeted the melted figure.

 

“I also wax like Lincoln.” meeeee too,” someone said on the previous Twitter platform X, while another captioned a photo of the melting sculpture with the words, “How your email reaches me.”

The sculpture would eventually melt, even though creator Sandy Williams IV told Newsweek they weren’t “expecting this version of the artwork to melt in this way.”

“I used to joke that when the climate deteriorated and we had temperatures high enough to melt these sculptures, this work would become environmental art. “I did not anticipate that day to come this past weekend,” the artist stated.

 

Curator and Executive Director of CulturalDC Kristi Maiselman told USA Today that although it will be taken down before students return in August, there are no plans to “repair the installation.”

There hasn’t been “a concrete decision on where the piece will go next,” according to Maiselman, despite the fact that galleries and individual collectors have expressed interest in purchasing the statue.

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