![]() Gomes’ portrait is the room’s first of a person who is not white. The portrait hangs above Gomes’ seat at faculty meetings and joins those of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, President Charles William Eliot, who transformed the College into modern Harvard, and the great mathematician Benjamin Peirce, along with nearly 40 other Harvard notables. In the portrait, it seems he might be about to say something funny or shocking - or both. He holds a Bible in one hand and in the other grasps the baton with which he led every Commencement he attended. The portrait, by Chinese-born artist Yuqi Wang, shows Gomes, who held posts in both the Divinity School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in full regalia, with a graduation cap and formal robes, and wearing the shield of the Memorial Church. Harvard scholar regarded as one of America’s leading preachers “But I’m delighted, nonetheless, that now we will have him in attendance.” “I’m a little afraid that after we dedicate this portrait, it will begin to speak, and I will look up from the president’s chair to find him declaiming against some measure he views as an unwarranted and dangerous intrusion of the present upon the past,” Faust said, jokingly. One of Harvard’s most celebrated figures, Gomes was also renowned for his wit. Gomesįaust offered a warm tribute to Gomes, a Baptist minister who served five Harvard presidents until he died five years ago at age 68, describing him as a man who “was not to be forgotten or ignored” for his kindness, frankness, and devotion to both teaching and preaching. Yuqi Wang unveiled Wang’s portrait of the Rev. That’s why the unveiling of his portrait at a ceremony led by President Drew Faust Thursday was a kind of homecoming. He was one of three curators who oversaw renovations in 2000. Not only that, but Gomes played a major role in preserving and curating the room, which is filled with portraits of bygone Harvard presidents and professors, hanging on sea-green walls. Gomes attended countless meetings in the historic Faculty Room in University Hall. As the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister at Memorial Church for nearly 40 years, the Rev.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |