At the bust’s 1946 unveiling, which attracted over eleven hundred people, Barthé was one of the most in demand sculptors in the US. His work was praised by such contemporaries as Alain Locke and Richard Bruce Nugent. Outside the art world, Barthé’s work has not received the attention it deserves, partly due to his exit from the US at the height of his popularity, decamping for Jamaica and then Europe. In spite of that, his legacy remains visible around the city such as the large relief "Green Pastures: The Walls of Jericho" at the Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn or the Memorial to Arthur Brisbane in Central Park. His work can also be found in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and countless other museums around the country.

The twin significance of Washington as the Hall’s first African American inductee and Barthé as its first African American artist touches on Barthé personal motivation, which he expressed to the artist Samella Lewis: “My dream in life was to make my people proud of me and show them how beautiful they are.” Some of Barthé’s other work, such as Stevedore (1937) or Feral Benga (1939), portray “vigorous, beautiful, and erotic black men.” In comparison, the bust of Washington is perhaps less seductive but no less powerful. Barthé also shared with Samella Lewis his profound belief in reincarnation and that he “lived in Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis and had gone back to Atlantis to his dreams.” The bust of Washington echoes the proportion and poise of sculpture from antiquity; fitting for someone as prolific as Washington.

When Washington was inducted 1946, the great educator found Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who had fought to keep him enslaved, among his company in the Hall. Today, Barthé’s stately treatment of Washington could be called reconstructivist: Washington remains barrel chested and defiant while his crueler company has been taken away.