Hoping to capitalize on summer tourists, the Tarble Arts Center is continuing its “Looking at Lincoln” exhibition of local artists’ work depicting Abraham Lincoln’s life and times until Aug. 11.

Michael Watts, the director at the center, said many people travel to the Lincoln sites in the summer.

“(Lincoln) is a popular subject matter for people that are traveling in the summer time,” he said. “Summertime is the biggest time for people to go to the Lincoln Log Cabin.”

Watts said most of the students are gone from campus, which makes visiting the center more visitor-friendly.

“There’s less traffic and parking is easier,” he said.

Watts said all the works included in the “Looking at Lincoln” exhibition are from the center’s permanent collection.

“The initial Looking at Lincoln exhibition was sort of a play on a statewide program called Looking for Lincoln,” he said. “It essentially is a way to denote several specific sites around the state that have a Lincoln tie, and there are a number of those in Charleston.”

The “Looking at Lincoln” exhibition includes woodcut drawings by Charles Turzak, a lithograph by John Suteuart Curry and a collograph from a 1945 drawing of Lincoln by N. C. Wyeth.

Watts said the center recently acquired drawings by Charles Turzak that have expanded the Lincoln collection.

“The core of the exhibition revolves on Turzak including two different groups of woodcuts that he did,” he said.

Turzak’s drawings were made before his later more influential work, Abraham Lincoln – A Biography in Woodcuts.

Watts said Turzak carved the 36 wood blocks for the Century of Progress at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.

The exhibition also includes other woodcuts by Turzak titled The History of Illinois in Woodcuts.

The center is also exhibiting the Illinois Folk Arts Collection.

Watts said much of the folk art in the exhibition dates back to Lincoln’s time such as an applique quilt made by Sara Dollar in 1840, a cane carved by a Cornelius Sullivan, a Union Civil War veteran, and a 1927 oil painting of the log cabin on the Sargent farm by Paul T. Sargent.

Watts said he likes the exhibition because it showcases the artwork from the American scene and artwork by the Regionalists.

Grant Wood, the painter of American Gothic, John Steuart Curry and Thomas Heart Bennet were the core members of the Regionalists, he said.

Watts said the permanent collection at the center is focused on Illinois folk art, 1930s and 1940s American scene works on paper.

“The Experiences of the Illinois Civil War Soldier: Reflections in Art and Artifacts” will also be displayed at the center until July 7.

Amanda Wilkinson can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].