# Walt Whitman

- By: Paul Wayland Bartlett (born New Haven, CT 1865-died Paris, France 1925)
- Date: modeled ca. 1887-1889
- Medium: bronze
- Classification: Sculpture
- Dimensions: 9 5/8 in. (24.4 cm) diam.
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=1460)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/7704ea918379ddf71b0ad4b2f1bc32e0.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Sculptors often create medals to honor famous individuals, and here we see an image of the poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892), who wrote the classic Leaves of Grass in 1855. Whitman’s work was a landmark in American literature that celebrated the poetry of everyday life in a young and democratic nation. Paul Wayland Bartlett’s irregularly shaped medal is likely a study for a more finished work.