‘The Battle of Atlanta’ Cyc Opens After Four Year Resto ATLANTA, Ga.—On Feb. 22, 2019, the Atlanta History Center opened The Battle of Atlanta cy-
million relocation and restorati project. The 360-degree painting is the centerpiece of the Center 25,000-square-foot multi-media exhibition Cyclorama: The Big Picture. In 2017, The Battle of Atlant and the locomotive Texas were moved from a 1921 building in Grant Park, Atlanta, to the newly-constructed Lloyd and Mary Ann Whitaker Cyclorama Building at the Atlanta History Center. Both artifacts have unde gone complete restorations. Created by the American Panorama Company Milwaukee during 1886, the cyclorama portrays the U.S. victor of July 22, 1864, when General William T. Sherman’s armies repulsed a determined Confederate attack directed by General John B. Hood along the Georgia Railroad east of Atlanta. A team of 17 mainly German artists painted the 18,000-squar foot painting in less than five months. Using sketches made
America’s Monthly New a n on the battlefield, they re-creat ed the moment at approximately 4:45 p.m. when General John A. “Blackjack” Logan led a counterattack against Confederates who had captured the DeGress Battery at the Troup Hurt House. The entire scene was composed from a Northern perspective so that it would appeal to Northern audiences. Only in large Northern cities were there enough paying customers to make the massive paintings profitable. The Battle of Atlanta was show in Minneapolis and Indianapolis through 1890. There was also a second copy of The Battle of Atlanta exhibited in Detroit and Baltimore. This second copy fell into disrepair and disappeared around 1900. In 1891, Georgia entrepreneur and showman Paul Atkinson purchased The Battle of Atlanta in Indianapolis after it had gone bankrupt. He moved it to Chattanooga and then Atlanta, where he advertised it as the “Only Confederate victory ever painted” to appeal to Southern audiences. After going bankrupt again, Th Battle of Atlanta was donated to the city of Atlanta in 1898. Afte nearly thirty years in a “temporary” wooden building, where it suffered considerable damage, the painting was enshrined in the 1921 steel, concrete, and marble structure in Grant Park, where it remained through 2017. Of at least 40 cycloramas that toured the United States depictin battles, biblical scenes, and dis ters, only The Battle of Atlanta and The Battle of Gettysburg survive. One inspiration for The Battle of Atlanta project was the move and restoration of The Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama between 2004 and 2008. In the 127 years that The Batt of Atlanta has been on display in Atlanta, the cyclorama has been the subject of periodic re-inter-
of the New South rising from the ashes left by Sherman. It has als been criticized as an anachronism
The Battle of Atlanta cyclorama foreground, restored 1930s plas Georgia red clay. meant to glorify the “Lost Caus of the Confederacy. Perceptions of history, and the painting it have depended on the eye of the beholder, as audiences viewed i in different times and places. In 2012, a task force convene by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed recommended moving The Battle of Atlanta from its outdated ni decades-old building to a new o to be built at the Atlanta Hist Center. On July 23, 2014—one day after the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta, Re announced a 75-year licensing agreement with the non-profit Atlanta History Center for the relocation and restoration of The Battle of Atlanta cyclorama painting and the Texas.
pledge from Lloyd and Mary Ann Whitaker initiated fund-raising
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d to its original 1886 dimension res rest on a new fiberglass dio (All photos for the project. The Center rais
private funds to design and construct a new building, relocate painting, restore it to its orig 1886 size and appearance, and create new interpretive exhibitions. From July 2014 through February 2019, a team of more than 200 architects, engineers, riggers, construction workers, and art conservators worked to bring The Battle of Atlanta back to life. The most significant ch lenges were erecting the buildin and engineering the move of the 10,000-pound painting as well as the 53,000-pound Texas. Today, three once missing sec tions of the painting have been restored: a 54-inch-wide vertical strip to the left of the Tro Hurt House (damaged and removed in 1893), a 22-inch-wide
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ppearance. In the fused with real sy of the Atlanta History Center vertical strip along the Decatur Road (excised in 1921 because the new Grant Park building was too small); and seven feet around the upper edge of the painting (removed incrementally as the painting was moved in the late 1880s and early 1890s). The sky, overpainted in 1922, ha also been restored to its origin appearance. Today, The Battle of Atlanta stands at its original s of 49 feet tall and 371 feet in cumference, just as visitors fir saw it in 1886. Entering the new exhibition, Cyclorama: The Big Picture, guests are greeted by an introdu tory video and a 10-foot-tall an mated map illustrating the cours of the Civil War in Georgia. Two levels of exhibitions examine th
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