photo by: Shutterstock

Abolitionist John Brown

Renowned Lawrence artist Stan Herd is set to create the world’s first earthwork portrait of the infamous abolitionist John Brown.

Herd will create the portrait in Osawatomie’s John Brown Memorial Park to highlight the importance of the community’s role in Bleeding Kansas and the pre-Civil War era, according to a news release from the City of Osawatomie.

Osawatomie officials have begun the effort to create the John Brown National Historical Park and transition the currently state-maintained historic site into a national park and museum, similar to the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia.

City officials will debut the portrait with Herd and his team on June 17 at the park. The noontime celebration will feature an array of legislative representatives from all levels of government, the city’s news release said.

Herd and his team began preliminary mapping and outlining of the earthwork in late April.

“Many Kansans, and a sizable majority of Americans, know little about the storied history of John Brown and Osawatomie,” Herd said in the release. “This story is but one component of an amazing unfolding of the American DNA; from the ‘Trail of Death’ of the Potawatomi to the thunderous beginning of the war that separated the Nation, to the opening of the West with the industry and rail convergence on the Kansas plains. Every American should know this story, if they want to know who they truly are as a Nation.”

Herd said he chose a lesser-known, beardless image of Brown to replicate in the earthwork, though he thinks it tells a deeper story as the image is thought to have been captured while Brown was living in Kansas.

Other earthwork portraits recently completed by Herd include Maya Angelou and John Lewis in Atlanta, Amelia Earhart in Abilene and Elie Wiesel in California. An upcoming landmark portrait of U.S. Sen. Bob Dole has been commissioned by the Dole Institute in Lawrence in honor of the late senator’s 100th birthday.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Lawrence crop artist Stan Herd, center, is joined by former U.S. Senators Trent Lott, left, and Tom Daschle, right, at the Dole Institute of Politics on KU’s West Campus on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. The trio was there to announce plans for a new earthwork portrait of Bob Dole, pictured at right.