A Tribute to Chicago Painters, c. Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries

Moving to Chicago just a little over a year and a half ago I was unfamiliar with Chicago artists. Loving the artists from my native Minnesota made me curious about the artists of Chicago. The beauty of the city of Chicago and the wonderful geography of Illinois gave me a strong incentive to discover these artists. After searching on the Internet for artists from the Chicago area I found very little information and it became very time consuming. When I joined MIR Appraisal Services, Inc. I finally became immersed with some excellent Chicago area artists. I found that most of these artists were born outside of the United States, but chose Chicago to progress their artistic talents. These artists have helped pave the way in making Chicago one of the premier artist cities in the world.

Gianni Cilfone's Moonrise

Gianni Cilfone was born in Italy and came to Chicago when he was five years old. Gianni Cilfone trained at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting "Moonrise" that is hanging on the walls at Mir was exhibited at the 1929 annual exhibit at the Art Institute. Cilfone's paintings are characterized by his warm colors and impressionistic style. His landscapes give off a peaceful tranquility with his calm compositions. Cilfone would paint side by side for many years with another artist who resided in Chicago named Samuel Bartilotta. Cilfone would later become a instructor at the Art Institute where he would share his knowledge and skill to young artists.

Henry Hulsmann

Henry Hulsmann was a German immigrant artist who painted in and around the Chicago area. Hulsmann grew up in a small farming town in Germany and moved to America when he was nineteen. Hulsmann would individually create frames to match his paintings. This would put a valuable relationship between the painting and the frame. Hulsmann's landscapes look like they could have painted in Germany. Many of his landscapes would have farming themes, which may have reminded him of his native Germany. Hulsmann's daughter was also a well known Chicago artist.

Harry Mintz's Naples 3

Harry Mintz was a polish born Artist who immigrated to America where he became a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. His lively abstract paintings capture the vitality and energy of Chicago. He experimented with a abstract expressionist style that was in a color field style. His paintings are very intuitive and emotionally intense. Some of his compositions would be entirely abstract, while others were more concrete.

Joseph Tomanek

Joseph Tomanek was born in Czechoslovakia and came to Chicago when he was 21 years. old. Tomanek painted very nice nudes that look similar to that of Renoir. His paintings were very delicate and feminine, with his loose brushstrokes and pastel colors. His nudes were very idealized, Tomanek would pick and choose different parts from his models to create the idyllic woman.

These artists are only a small sample of the incredible talent pool of Chicago artists. Chicago is a such a melting pot of cultures that these artists were able to come from all over the world to bring their own styles and cultural experiences to the city of Chicago. This would not have been possible without the proper institutions to harbor the talents of these artists. The Art Institute of Chicago showed how incredibly influential it has been in developing the art scene in Chicago. There are also a number of different artists groups and coalitions that have nurtured the arts scene in Chicago. Here at Mir our appraisers have a wealth of information on Chicago artists, but we are constantly trying to expand this knowledge. If you have any artwork by Chicago area artists, please let our dedicated staff take a look.

Written and researched Robert Snell

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.

307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308

Chicago, IL 60601

Phone: (312) 814-8510

Web: www.mirappraisal.com

Works cited:

http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?searchtype=BIO&artist=86711

http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?searchtype=BIO&artist=11156817

http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?searchtype=BIO&artist=24448

http://www.harrymintz.com

Chicago Artists Profile Part I: Walter and Harriet Krawiec

The greater Chicago area has fostered the artistic growth of countless architects, authors and artists known the world over. Once the United State’s second largest city, Chicago’s rich artistic history is obvious even before art admirers pass through the doors of the city’s multitude of public museums and opulent homes. MIR Appraisal Services works with estates the world over but is especially fond of the estates of collectors who pay special attention to local artists that have contributed to Chicago’s rich heritage. A great number of artists who hit their creative heights in the Windy City have found international fame, but with such a volume of creative output pouring from the city it is understandable that a few names have remained secrets to all but those with a fine eye for artistic and historic gems.

One of these hidden yet brilliant Chicago artists MIR has encountered is Walter Krawiec, a Polish American artist who became a staple in the Chicago art scene from the 1930’s through the 1980’s. So influential was this artist that when one searches the Chicago Tribune archives they encounter no fewer than 133 articles mentioning the artist, nearly 20 of which are exclusively on the artist and his work. Krawiec was born in Morzew, Poland in September of 1889 and soon immigrated to the United States along with his parents at the age of 3 (Mass). Living until the ripe age of 92, Walter Krawiec lived in the Northwest side of Chicago for the majority of his life, working as an artist for 75 years. Aside from the oil paintings and drawings that made him a staple of some of the most influential art galleries in Chicago, Krawiec was a cartoonist for the Polish Daily news for 60 years. Walter’s artistic inclination was shared with his wife, Harriet, another Chicago area artist some of whose works MIR houses in our Michigan Avenue office.

For fifty years Walter’s cartoons greeted Polish readers on the front page of the paper and his personality was such that he received the newspaper’s Veritas et Caritas award as well as being named the paper’s Man of the Year (Mass). Further insight into his personality can be gleaned from an article written in 1968 entitled “Artist-Patient Cheers Up Staff” (A.P.). During his stay at Resurrection Hospital for an undisclosed reason Krawiec is reported to have drawn caricatures of the nurses and doctors who were taking care of him, much to the amusement of the hospital’s staff pictured below in a stock photograph. The article elaborates that his work hung in the galleries of LBJ’s ranch, the home of Mayor Richard Daley and the home of former Governor William Stratton. Interestingly, the ground on which the hospital stood was once a ranch where the artist had painted his early farm scenes.

Krawiec’s art is dominated by a fascination with horses and the circus, two pleasures the artist encountered as a child and two that came to dominate his artistic subject matter. These paintings are remarkable for their mastery of form as well as for their diversity of setting and color, paintings that were able to bring an older age to contemporary viewers during the time. Bringing the country to the city, the artist also painted factory and harbor subjects and was often found painting the stockyards during a time when Chicago was “hog butcher to the world.” Harriet’s art is dominated by still lifes of flowers that often accompanied and complimented Walter’s work while on display in the most popular Chicago galleries.

The legacy of Walter and Harriet left a lasting impact on the communities in which they lived. Walter received an award from a Polish society for his philanthropic work and both were honored at the Poland World’s Fair of 1929 (Weigle).

Their works have been exhibited all over the United States, in the Art Institute and as far away as Poland. News of their latest exhibitions, accomplishments and artistic endeavors filled the pages of the Chicago Tribune for almost half of a century and their work is coveted by well-versed collectors with an eye for quality.

MIR is happy to have dealt in works of this quality and wants to remind collectors of art that their pieces may have a history they are unaware of. Many artists are valuable monetarily and culturally but few of their names are circulated as frequently as names like Picasso, Degas and Warhol. For this reason it is important to seek out the expert opinion of a trustworthy art appraiser who is familiar with these lesser known artists and who will take the time to research the item thoroughly. We compel you to explore our website and our services and recommend you call us should you have questions about your own artwork.

Written and Researched by Justin Bergquist

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.

Principal Appraiser: Farhad Radfar, ISA, AM

307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308

Chicago, IL 60601

(312) 814-8510

Works cited:

“Artist-Patient Cheers Up Staff” in Chicago Tribune, 17 Nov. 1968.

“Mass Set for Walter Krawiec, Polish Daily News Cartoonist” in Chicago Tribune, 13 June 1982.

Weigle, Edith. “Krawiec Art Recalls Era of Childhood” in Chicago Tribune, 26 Feb. 1960.

A MIR Tribute: Barbara Crane's 60 Year Retrospective

“I keep chasing perfection—the perfect negative,

the perfect image, the perfect group of images;

it’s the chase that is so exciting, so all consuming.”

—Barbara Crane (Foerstner 238).

Sometimes I am absolutely overcome with a feeling of intense pride for our city of Chicago; on such a day this week, I stepped out of the downtown rain and into the Chicago Cultural Center—Tiffany glass dome, mosaic tile-work, gold leaf plaster motifs, winding staircases. On the fourth floor: Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision, a 60 year retrospective of the Chicago-born photographer. Witnessing Crane’s immense oeuvre—some 300 photographs, representing samplings over 64 distinct bodies of work—I felt like one who discovers the evidence of mysterious, prolific, totemic relics—treasure in a cave. Yet here the “devotional” array does not sparkle garishly like rubies; rather, Crane’s work is crowned with a sort of humility. Branches, bones, fungi, flowers, regenerative accidents (the Wipe Out series), amorous scenes at fairgrounds and beaches—a massive, yet attentive, gathering of the fecund stuff of our world.

On Thursday, I attended a thoughtful, inspired gallery talk led by Abigail Foerstner, essayist on Barbara Crane.

Abigail Foerstner, essayist on Crane, stands near Sticks

The exhibit hall’s grand space, with its gold leaf plaster ornamentation reminiscent of natural motifs, finds harmony with Crane’s own rather organic “ornamentation”—repeated frames of human activity, building structures, and natural matter become a strangely reverent and “decorative” treatment. Her works are also reminiscent of nests, in the sense that their composition finds origin in the regenerative array of cast-off materials used to support new growth.

Foerstner shared charming, little stories about Crane—for many years, one could recognize Crane pulling her red golf bag filled with her camera equipment through downtown Chicago streets; in more pastoral settings, she carries her Deardorff camera in a red wagon through the woods. At the Polaroid studios in New York City and Cambridge, MA, she used one of only 4 cameras (and one proto-type) in the world which uses 20 X 24 peel apart prints (used for her photograph Potpourri). Some of her methods include photographing out-of-doors in the late night woods, while casting a strobe light on branches; when photographing pigeons, she held her camera in one hand and threw birdseed overhead with the other!

John Rohrbach comments on the experimental feel of her work: “On one level, the work is reminiscent of early snapshot photographs where people played with the camera rather than staidly following Kodak’s dictates of family vacation record keeping” (Foerstner 11). Alternatively, if one were to view Crane’s oeuvre through the lens of a “family vacation record”, one could witness the family of humankind, as it commutes downtown, partakes in beach-side romances, and journeys through national parks. Crane brings the feeling of the cosmic to a leaf or a stick, a bone a feather—Abigail calls her work a “parallel universe”—in her work we find the stuff of the everyday, and yet she confronts the most mundane with an attitude of such supreme attention, we feel as if we are witnessing peculiar, holy vestiges.

Sand Findings

Abigail calls Crane’s studio itself—on the first floor of a converted Singer Sewing Machine Factory—a “universe,” and identifies the artist as “Barbara the Great Collector.” When Foerstner met Crane 25 years ago, the artist invited her into her kitchen for coffee—on the walls were installations of hub caps and feathers, broken glass, nuts and bolts in glass jars on the window sills; Crane told Foerstner: “Everything’s useful for a photograph.” The photographs which resonated with me the most are her On the Fence series, which Foerstner identifies as “sculptural” groupings (Foerstner 18). During a Guggenheim fellowship in Tucson, and without a darkroom, Crane forged a relationship with Polaroid Corporation, and began to take 8-by-10 inch Polaroids of various objects displayed on a backyard chain link fence.

Seemingly democratic in her affections and attention toward cast-off items of the natural and human world, she photographed the head of a cactus, held in place with twisty-ties, shiny black feathers wound through the links, a slide tray, a “Grandmother-to-be” tee-shirt, a dead rabbit. Her use of the expression “on the fence” speaks to me in terms of ambivalence and the liminal—the photographs are a strange temporal display of decay, re-use, the kitsch (I love the green twisty-ties as fasteners with the cactus!), the tragic (the rabbit) all weighted equally because of the continuity of the framework (the chain-link fence)—and yet each have different emotional resonance.

I asked Abigail if Crane ever speaks of her work in terms of the shamanistic, apotropaic, magical, and ritualistic; Abigail responded that while she could personally read Crane’s work as “shamanistic”, Crane tends to speak of her own work as a “gathering.” In a wonderful excerpt from Foerstner’s biographical essay in the book Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision, photographic process are related to the magical: “'Abracadabra,’ her father would say. And, like magic, an image slowly appeared.‘I still think it’s magic,’ Crane says. ‘My studio and darkroom are my private spaces” (Foerstner 239).

I was quite interested in Abigail’s comment that Crane’s Neon Series showcases a “mask-like ritual property.”

from Neon Series

In the vein of imbuing strangers and public spaces with a sort of spiritual attention, Crane used 1500 sheets of film in the process of making People of the North Portal—folks exiting through a doorway at the Museum of Science and Industry. Here we see Crane’s motifs of repetition and rhythm, also found in such works as Commuter Discourse, in which she photographed, in the dazzling words of Abigail Foerstner: “the stampede facing west while the sunlight pours like a tsunami across the east.”

Armed with an enormous Super Speed Graphic camera, and hoping the local folks would consider her on hire for the parks department, Crane also embarked on capturing the Wrightsville Beach series.

I love Abigail’s perfect description of this series: “A magnetic field of coolers, jewelry, radios and sunglasses” punctuated with “intense body language.”

Other striking, novel arrangements of form, pattern, and repetition are developed in such works as Whole Roll: Albanian Soccer Players and in the series Urban Anomalies.

I am interested in the manner in which whole groups of pages in a novel can constitute the climax or the denouement, and yet the photograph is fragmentary yet has the feel of a whole world, a field of living action. Foerstner aptly identifies the “dramatic effect” created by the very nature of “photography as a medium that fragments each moment it records” (Foerstner 245). “Art critic Kirk Varnedoe characterizes the use of repetition and fragmentation in modern art as both liberating and imprisoning:

“On the one hand, the thing ripped from its former integral context, and given independent life, as indicative of the disruptions of new individual freedom; and on the other, the form recurring in exact or near-exact identity, as indicative of new conceptions in collective order” (Varnedoe 180).

Repeats: Fringe Benefit

Barbara Crane’s use of repetition builds rhythm and music:

“While doing the Repeat and the Petites Choses Series, I was taking notes at the symphony as visual diagrams of the crescendos, legatos, and staccatos in order to widen my visual experience” (Foerstner 243).

Petites Choses

Consider Still Lifes (diptych)—the animal, photographed on both sides and doubled in self-confrontation.

from the series Still Lifes

A fellow artist, the sculptor Ann Bannard, gifted the opossum skull to Crane as a wedding present—with a note: “you are the only person in the world I could send a dead animal skull” (Foerstner 247). I admire Crane’s novel interpretation and enlivening of the still life trope—her graceful undoing of romantic notions concerning hermetic arrangements of beautiful objects—in the series we see fangs and frozen whiskers, delicately patterned wings, abstract animal matter. Her series Visions of Enarc similarly disrupts our sense of the romantic, as the towering floral life appears rather threatening:

The Barbara Crane exhibit is ongoing through January 10, 2010. Upcoming related events:

Thursday, December 17, 12:15 p.m.

Gallery talk led by Whitney Bradshaw, Curator of Photography for the Bank of America Collection

Thursday, January 7, 12:15 p.m.

Gallery talk with the artist

Make plans to visit the Chicago Cultural Center, free and open to the public, and MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.—mere blocks from the exhibition! Please make an appointment to see some of the works in our gallery, featuring several works by Chicago artists, including the late Ruth Duckworth, Emmanuel Viviano, among others...

Jessica Savitz

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.

307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308

Chicago, IL 60601

Phone: (312) 814-8510

Works Cited:

Foerstner, Abigail and Rohrbach, John. Barabara Crane: Challenging Vision. Chicago Cultural Center. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Varnedoe, Kirk. A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. New York: Harry N. Adams, Inc., 1990.