Artist: Rudolph Weisenborn (1881-1974)
Title: Contemporary Chicago
Date: 1936
Medium: oil on canvas
Rudolph Weisenborn’s mural at Nettelhorst Elementary shows his interest in modern European painting styles such as Cubism. Fractured space, jagged lines, and vibrant primary colors convey Chicago’s energy and modernity during the 1930s. On the left, an abstracted portrait of a sophisticated urban dweller is followed by forms of modern transportation such as small biplanes at Chicago Municipal Airport (Midway) and boats on Lake Michigan. The right half of the composition shows the stockyards on Chicago’s South Side and a construction worker holding an anvil and working on a steel frame structure.
A native of Chicago, Weisenborn worked for a time as a gold miner and cowpuncher in Colorado before becoming an artist. He received four years of academic art training before turning his attention to more avant-garde painting styles. In addition to Contemporary Chicago, Weisenborn’s Chicago mural commissions included the only abstract mural for The Century of Progress (1933-34) exhibition and a mural series at Crane Technical High School.
Related work in the Art Institute:
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks
This famous painting, completed six years after the Contemporary Chicago mural, shows an all-night diner in New York in a realistic style.
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Artist: Ethel Spears (1903-1978?)
Title: Horses from Children's Literature
Date: 1936
Medium: oil on canvas |
Intended for the school library, Spears’ mural includes vignettes from famous mythological and children's stories in which horses play important roles. Shown are images from such stories as the Spanish tale Don Quixote, the Arabian myth Al Borak, and My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara. In this detail from the mural, Spears illustrates the scene from the tale of the Trojan Horse in which the citizens of Troy receive the deceptive gift of a large wooden horse from their Greek enemies.
Ethel Spears was born in Chicago in 1903. After training under John Warner Norton, who designed murals at Peirce School, she worked for the mural division of the Illinois Art Project. She exhibited at the Art Institute seven times between 1926 and 1938. Her mural commissions include the Lowell School in Oak Park, Anderson Playground in Oak Park, Carroll Community House and Barrie Community House in Oak Park, Research Hospital in Chicago, and Oakton Elementary School in Evanston. |
