Panthéon de la Guerre

Painted in Paris as the Great War raged, the Panthéon de la Guerre was originally a massive circular panorama described as the largest oil painting in the world. 45 feet tall with a circumference of 402 feet, it depicted thousands of prominent wartime figures from all Allied nations.

Neglected after a post-war U.S. tour, the Panthéon was stored outdoors and left to degrade until it was bought at auction in 1952 by William Haussner, a German WWI veteran who had become a successful Baltimore restaurateur. In 1957, Kansas City artist Daniel MacMorris persuaded Haussner to donate the panorama to the Memorial.

Though the storage conditions had destroyed sections of the painting, fragments of the Panthéon were rearranged and reworked by MacMorris and this newly-configured composition was installed in Memory Hall, where it remains today.

The composition has been dramatically altered from its original circular layout, with figures from throughout the original painting reassembled, almost like a collage, into the smaller format seen today.