Art News

New images show Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Washington memorial amid criticism

WASHINGTON (AP).- As critics of a planned monument honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower object to everything from its giant scale to its depiction of the Cold War president and famed World War II general as a “barefoot boy from Kansas,” new images and documents released to The Associated Press reveal other key elements overshadowed by the furor and show how the controversial project developed. The work by Frank Gehry, to be built as a memorial park just off the National Mall, would feature two stones in “heroic scale,” carved as bas reliefs. Based on new images recently released to The Associated Press, the carvings would depict a famed photo of Ike addressing his troops on the eve of D-Day, and another of the Republican president studying the globe. Most of the attention and criticism has focused on large metal tapestries, proposed by Gehry to portray Eisenhower’s Kansas roots, and a statue of a young Eisenhower. As recently as