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Francis Bicknell Carpenter
Image courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library
Francis Bicknell Carpenter
Image courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library

Francis Bicknell Carpenter

American, 1830 - 1900
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Place ActiveWashington, District of Columbia, United States
Place of BirthHomer, New York, United States
Francis Bicknell Carpenter was an American painter who gained renown for painting portraits of presidents, including Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce. His 1864 painting, The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, is his most famous and hangs in US Capitol Building in the west stairwell of the Senate wing.