A FITTING TRIBUTE TO THE MASTER The Link Museum BY TONY REEVY/PHOTOS AS NOTED
O. WINSTON LINK’S photographs, recordings and films of the end of Nor- folk & Western in steam have achieved world-wide fame. In 2004, a museum focused on Link’s work opened in the former
Norfolk & Western passenger
station in Roanoke, Va. Located in the shadow of the Roanoke Shops, birth- place of the N&W Class J’s and other well-known steam locomotives, the mu- seum is well worth a visit.
Link’s work was popular in the late 1950s, largely due to exposure in two articles in Trains and a pamphlet pro- duced by the N&W titled Night Trick. The popularity of Link’s photos waned until two exhibits in 1983 catapulted Link to fame in both the railfan and art worlds. Two books followed, as well as a dramatic increase in the value of signed prints by Link. By the time of his death in 2001, Link was well- known throughout the world, and his work was highly collected.
A Museum Honoring Link
Link was approached several times by entities wishing to provide a home
for his N&W project work, but was nev- er satisfied with the proposals he re- ceived. In 1999, Norfolk Southern Cor- poration executive David Helmer approached Kent Chrisman, executive director of the Historical Society of Western Virginia, about locating a Link museum in Roanoke. Chrisman and Jim Sears, president and general manager of the Western Virginia Foun- dation for the Arts and Sciences, devel- oper of Roanoke’s downtown Center in the Square, liked the idea. In 2000, a contingent from Roanoke visited Link, who was supportive of the planned mu- seum.
It was Link who suggested, among other locations, the former passenger station as a home for his work. The sta- tion is an important artifact in its own right: it was built at the turn of the 20th century, and then remodeled into high modern style in the late 1940s us- ing a design by a firm led by another famed artist of the American rails, Ray- mond Loewy. It was donated by Norfolk Southern to The Roanoke Foundation for Downtown in the late 1990s.
Link died in January 2001, before museum negotiations were complete. By August 2001, however, the museum group had successfully negotiated pur- chase of Link’s prints and negatives, as well as his notes and lighting equip- ment, from the trustees of his estate. Meanwhile, the Western Virginia Foundation for the Arts and Sciences acquired the Roanoke station in 2000 and began renovating it, raising $6.6 million for the project. The restored station then provided a site for the O. Winston Link Museum and for the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visi- tors Bureau, which occupies the former ticket lobby (now known as the Norfolk Southern Lobby) and the former bag- gage check room of the station. The O. Winston Link Museum Committee, led by David Helmer and another volun- teer, John P. Bradshaw, Jr., raised $2.8 million to establish the museum within the restored station. Tom Garver, one of Link’s photo- graphic assistants during the N&W project, served as the museum’s orga- nizing curator on a consulting basis,
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