Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 213 – Mitchell & Halbach, Fresco Artists

After the West Virginia sketching trip in 1885, Thomas G. Moses found himself quite busy with both work and study. He remained at Sosman & Landis Studio, did some extra work at the Lyceum Theatre, and even joined a class as Crossman’s Studio to study figure drawing. Despite his busy schedule, Moses also managed to complete a few watercolors for a collector named Fanning. For these commissions he received the “magnificent sum” of $100.00 per dozen, averaging four pictures a week; each was 14 x 22. Fanning wanted Moses to go to New York City and do nothing but paint woodland scenes, but he had to refuse. Work was too plentiful in Chicago and he had the responsibility of a home and family there. He wrote, “I was ambitious to do something besides a scene painter, to leave something besides a name, which is about all a scene painter leaves as his scenic work is soon painted out.”

That year Moses also created some perspective interiors for the decorating firm of Mitchel & Halbach. He started when the company opened under the direction of Otto W. Mitchel and J. Fred A. Halbach.

Mitchel & Halbach was a Chicago theatrical decorator firm. Like P. M. Almini and Otto Jevne who preceded them, both of the founders advertised as fresco artists, working all over the country in state house, theaters and private residences. Otto W. Mitchel was a decorator and furnisher born in Vesbeck, near Hanover, Germany on October 8, 1853. He arrived in Chicago by 1873 and he immediately began studying studied Fred M. Atwood. In 1880, Mitchel married Edith Geiger in 1880 and had a son, Louis. By 1885, he engaged in a decorating and furnishing business with J. Fred A. Halbach, forming Mitchel and Halbach. The company incorporated as Mitchel & Halbach Co., on April 13, 1908. Company offices where initially located at 195 Wabash Ave in 1887, 264 Michigan Ave. in 1905 and at 718 S. Michigan Ave. in 1911, and 1715 S. Michigan Ave. in 1922. Mitchel was a Mason, Republican, and member of the Chicago Athletic Club.

Fred A. Halbach was born in Peru, Indiana, on December 25, 1856. He began his artistic career with the firm of William Cheney in Toledo from 1871-1877. In 1877, he moved to Chicago where he continued to develop his skills as a decorator. In 1880, he moved to New York where he was employed as a designer and decorator at Pottier & Stymus, a prominent American furniture and design firm. They made furniture in Neo-Greco, Renaissance Revival, Egyptian Revival, and Modern Gothic Styles, employing 700 men and 50 women by 1872.

By 1885, Halbach had returned to Chicago where he met Mitchel. Halbach was a Republican and member of the Royal Arcanum, Royal League, Union League, Athletic Club, and the O’Klok Klub.

Mitchel & Halbach added the finishing touches to theatrical, commercial, and residential interiors, specializing in hand-painted frescoes, glazed and stenciled canvas-on-plaster wall coverings, stained glass work, and other decorative painting.

By 1911, the firm was credited with decorations for over 300 theatres nationwide, including the New Majestic Theatre (Houston, TX), Empire Theatre (NYC), Broadway Theatre (NYC), American Theatre (NYC), Weber’s Music Hall (NYC), Chicago Opera House, Columbia Theatre (Chicago), Hooley’s Theatre (Chicago), New Orpheum (Los Angeles, CA), New Orpheum (Salt Lake City), New Orpheum (New Orleans, LA), New Orpheum (Memphis, TN), New Orpheum (Denver, CO), and many other.

One of the more famous venues that they decorated was the 1911 (Sparks) New Theatre in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Interior decorations were a mixture of Beaux-Arts and Art Nouveau styles. The theatre was designed by the architectural firm Boller Brothers of Kansas City and intended as a live performance venue with a large fly space, an orchestra pit that seated up to twenty musicians and an auditorium that seated 1,200 people on the main floor, two balconies, and two sets of boxes. In 1929, $20,000 was spent to purchase equipment to show “talking movies” and the venue changed with the times. By the 1930s the space was remodeled in the Art Moderne style. The New Theatre was the only theatre in Fort Smith that would admit African Americans. The upper balcony was reserved for African American patrons during the days of racial segregation.

George Sparks had been a wealthy Fort Smith businessman who had been impressed by a 1903 performance at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York. After returning to his hometown, he decided to build a similar theatre. Unfortunately, Sparks died in a shipwreck off the California coat in 1907. However, his estate left enough money in his will to build both a theatre and hospital in Fort Smith by 1911.

To be continued…

Author: waszut_barrett@me.com

Wendy Rae Waszut-Barrett, PhD, is an author, artist, and historian, specializing in painted settings for opera houses, vaudeville theaters, social halls, cinemas, and other entertainment venues. For over thirty years, her passion has remained the preservation of theatrical heritage, restoration of historic backdrops, and the training of scenic artists in lost painting techniques. In addition to evaluating, restoring, and replicating historic scenes, Waszut-Barrett also writes about forgotten scenic art techniques and theatre manufacturers. Recent publications include the The Santa Fe Scottish Rite Temple: Freemasonry, Architecture and Theatre (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2018), as well as articles for Theatre Historical Society of America’s Marquee, InitiativeTheatre Museum Berlin’s Die Vierte Wand, and various Masonic publications such as Scottish Rite Journal, Heredom and Plumbline. Dr. Waszut-Barrett is the founder and president of Historic Stage Services, LLC, a company specializing in historic stages and how to make them work for today’s needs. Although her primary focus remains on the past, she continues to work as a contemporary scene designer for theatre and opera. View all posts by waszut_barrett@me.com