The Departed, Lying In State

Revisiting photos of the solemn tradition that honors our late Presidents—leading to one former White House photographer's unexpected selfie.

On January 24, 1973, Frank Wolfe photographed a sea of mourners encircling President Lyndon B. Johnson’s flag-draped casket in the Capitol Rotunda. Wolfe’s photo is moody, almost cinematic—history and ceremony packed into a single, timeless image.

Photograph by Frank Wolfe

But it wasn’t the most interesting photo Wolfe made during LBJ’s funeral, I’ll circle back on that.

The tradition of Presidents lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda dates back to 1865, when Abraham Lincoln became the first. But, unless Alexander Gardner snuck a frame—à la Tom Howard—no photos exist of Lincoln’s casket in the Rotunda. It wasn’t until the death of President James Garfield in 1881 that the tradition was first documented. Washington photographer Charles Milton Bell got the call.

Photograph by Charles Milton Bell

In 1901, after President William McKinley succumbed to an assassin’s bullet, William H. Rau made this photo in the Rotunda. McKinley’s casket is framed beneath John Trumbull’s Surrender of Lord Cornwallis—one of the eight historical paintings that loom in the background of every photo from the Rotunda. Ever-present symbolism.

Photograph by William H. Rau

Presidential portraitist George William Harris documented President Warren Harding lying in state in August of 1923. The handwriting at the top of the water-damaged negative reads: Pres. Harding Funeral. The evolution of these photographs is nearly complete.

Photograph by George W. Harris

In 1963, longtime White House photographer Abbie Rowe captured this tender moment of Jaqueline Kennedy and her daughter kneeling at President Kennedy’s casket in the Rotunda.

Photograph by Abbie Rowe

Flanked by William Powell’s Discovery of the Mississippi and John Chapman’s Baptism of Pocahontas, Rowe’s photo, despite being back-focused (Horatio Stone’s marble statue of Edward Dickinson Baker, not Jackie, is tack sharp), is one of the most well-known photos of a President lying in state. But it’s far from his best.

On April 14, 1945, Rowe shot this deeply-layered photo through the window of FDR’s funeral train. The ghostly reflections have an American Gothic vibe.

Photograph by Abbie Rowe

Plenty of good photos have been made in the Rotunda, but sometimes it takes an act of God—or a random streak of sunlight—to make a great one. National Geographic photographer George Mobley climbed to the balcony for this photo of JFK’s casket. The light and color are sublime.

Photograph by George Mobley

LIFE’s Bob Gomel was shoulder to shoulder with Mobley and captured a strikingly similar photo. “The lighting was divine intervention,” Gomel told the Houston Chronicle. “But you have to be ready for it, too.” And have tungsten film in your camera (that’s why it’s blue).

Photograph by Bob Gomel

When President Eisenhower lay in state in the Rotunda in 1969, Gomel rigged a camera directly above his casket with a wire-and-pulley system and a foot pedal to trigger the shutter. Gomel’s gravity-defying photo landed on the cover of LIFE.

Photograph by Bob Gomel

Decades later, photographers continue to climb the Rotunda stairs for the unique angle, chasing the light. On January 8, 2025, Getty’s Andrew Harnik let the shadows fall on this photo of Jimmy Carter’s flag-draped casket. Instantly viral, and, unfortunately, uncredited.

Photograph by Andrew Harnik

Circling back: The day after Frank Wolfe photographed LBJ lying in state in the Rotunda, he boarded Air Force One with the President for the last time. Wolfe handed his camera to someone—no one knows who—and asked for a final photo of himself with the President. Wolfe appears visibly shaken, tightly holding the hands of LBJ’s daughter, Luci Baines Johnson.

Photograph by Unknown

The contact sheet reveals that the anonymously-taken photo was the first frame onboard Air Force One (renamed the Spirit of '76).

At first, I was taken aback by Wolfe’s photo—it felt weirdly inappropriate for a photographer to do such a thing. But then I learned that he’d been with LBJ nearly every day for nine years, documenting the President’s life from the White House to his farm in Texas.¹ Wolfe, reflecting on his journey, once asked, “Was that really me? How did a poor boy from rural Pennsylvania wind up in the White House?”²

The photo wasn’t for the White House, or for the sake of history—it was for himself.

1. Harry J. Middleton, LBJ (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990), 7.

2. John Pacheco, “Local Wolfe Was Photographer for LBJ, JFK,” Dripping Springs Century News, December 8, 2016