While Elbridge Ayer Burbank is best known for his portraits of Native Americans, his artistic career focused broadly on documenting people, places, and events that define American history and society. In this context—and given the fact that Burbank was born and raised in Abraham Lincoln’s home state of Illinois—his interest in picturing the post office where Lincoln served as postmaster in the 1830s (and where the future president began his legal career and was first elected to public office) makes sense.
Burbank had close ties to the Gallup area. He spent a significant amount of time at what is now known as the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, AZ (about one hour’s drive west of Gallup) in the early 1900s in his quest to paint “every single Indian tribe in America.” It is likely that he donated Untitled (Abraham Lincoln’s Post Office) to the Gallup Art Center as efforts to establish a permanent art museum in Gallup gained traction—yet why this piece/subject in particular is undetermined.
