Month: September 2018

Part 521: Palette & Chisel, November – The Changing Times of Scenic Art

Thomas G. Moses was a member of the Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago and contributed a variety of articles to their monthly newsletter during the late 1920s. His series “Stage Scenery” was first published during September 1927. The article, however, was written by Moses during the spring of 1918.

 Here is Moses’ final November installment during 1927:

“Advertising in theatrical papers and magazines is quite necessary for this line of scenic painting. Illustrated catalogues are gotten up with a good deal of care and half-tones of the actual painted scenes are used. As stages differ in many ways, especially in size, from nine to forty feet in depth, it is quite essential that accurate dimensions be obtained. A card is sent to the prospective buyers which they fill out, giving all the required measurements. The scenes needed are listed, estimates made, the order is received, and each scene is given to the artist who is the most competent to execute that especial scene.

On completion the drop and borders are rolled up the short way and boxed, the frame-work is crated and shipped by express or freight. Instructions are sent for the hanging and setting of all scenes; on many stages it requires the supervision of an expert who is sent to do the work. Models and sketches are made and a miniature stage with all lines and lights, is used to set up the different scenes. The customer can see exactly what he is going to receive. As the average small theatre does not change the scenery within a period of ten years or more it has to be very neutral in design and color so it will not tire the audience in the ten years of wear.

For many years the larger theatres in many parts of the country put in a paint frame and bridge. The scenery was then built and painted in the local theatre, which necessitated the artist and assistant, with a good mechanic, to travel about the country. The writer did this for twenty years, from Maine to California, back and forth, some theatres taking as long as ten months to stock while others were finished in two months. In those days the scenic artist and his work were looked upon in an entirely different light than they are today. Possibly it is the fault of the artists; an indifference as to the real worth of their work has caused the managers to look to others for suggestions, making a simple workman of the artist, one who only follows their instructions, allowing the stage manager to receive all of the credit for the stage settings, while the artist labors on the paint frame all through the hot and sultry night to produce something artistic.

The scenic art has been the starting point for a great many of the well-known picture painters. Among the English painters are Clarkson, Stanfield and David Roberts. All were prominent scenic artists and became as great in picture painting. Some of the leading American artists were scenic artists. J. Francis Murphy was an assistant to Mr. Strauss, who was the artist at Hooley’s Theatre in 1874. The well-known illustrator and water colorist, Charles Graham, was also an assistant to Mr. Strauss at this same time.”

The article continued, “W. C. Fitler was another scenic artist who made good pictures. Jules Guerin, the noted illustrator, started his art career as a scenic artist. I might name several dozen artists who owe their early training to scenic art.

There are a dozen Chicago scenic artists who have forsaken the paint frame pictures for the easel pictures. In a way I do not blame them, for scenic painting is made up of ling hours and hard manual labor. The bigness of the work appalls many who venture into the game, and, with its dirt, soon discourages them and they looker for a cleaner vocation. The close confinement of the old theatre days was another disagreeable feature of the work that never appealed to anyone; no daylight, always long hours and foul air.

The studio of today is an entirely different proposition; a large airy room, plenty of space in which to work, regular hours, all new work, and with very few exceptions, congenial companions; each artist specializing in one line of work, plenty to learn each day and good salaries paid to all, is a big inducement to forsake the stock painting in the theatre and accept the studio work.

The establishment of the scenic studios has created a great deal of competition and sometimes it is very keen, for there are quite a number of assistants who do not know the business thoroughly, yet can convince a certain type of theatre managers who, very often are managers of a very good theatres, that their painting is just as good as that of a man of more than thirty years’ experience and a national reputation.

The raw material has advanced at such a rate that it is impossible to keep pace with it. At this writing (spring of 1918) with the great world’s war going on, common cotton has advanced to thirty-four cents a yard when two years ago it was only eleven cents, and the quality has dropped one hundred percent.

It is impossible to get the rich color we had two years ago. The color question is one of great importance. To begin with, one of the first important features of scene painting is the ground coating or “priming,” whiting and glue size. It must be very carefully mixed and “just so.” T takes several buckets to prime and ordinary drop; the edge must be kept wet so the color will be even all over. If the color edge is dry it will become too thick and will crack when rolled up. In many cases a strong tint in the priming is used for a tonal feeding, especially in landscape. It gives a certain amount of looseness when plenty of tonal color is left in the painting.

The end.”

 

To be continued…

 

 

Part 520: Palette & Chisel, October 1927 – Creating Stock Scenery

Thomas G. Moses was a member of the Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago and contributed a variety of articles to their monthly newsletter during the late 1920s. His series “Stage Scenery” began during September 1927, however, it was originally written during the spring of 1918.

Here is the third part of Moses’ “Stage Scenery” in the Palette & Chisel newsletter during October 1927:

“The material used to paint on is a fine grade Russian linen and a heavy grade of cotton cloth. Linen is used for all scenery on frames; the cotton is used for drops and borders, usually called “hangers.” The lumber is a fine grade of clear, white pine, without knots or sap. It has to be very clear and straight grained so it will stand upright without too much bracing.

After the canvas has been carefully prepared with a priming coat of whiting and glue is thoroughly dried, the artist draws his design with charcoal, which must be carefully done. In many cases the model must be laid off in squares and the same is carried up on the drop or set pieces. This enables the artist to produce the model exactly as part of the paint frame is below the bridge most of the time so the artist cannot see all of the drop. After the scene is drawn in it is traced with ink, which enables the artist to lay in the main local colors without destroying the drawing. The drawing out of an interior is very laborious. The work has to be done very accurately and pounces and stencils made, as there are many pieces to be covered.

In case of a landscape, they sky is laid in first, distance follows, then the middle distance, and there are many pieces to be covered.

In case of a landscape, the sky is laid in first, distance follows, then the middle distance, and the foreground last. The trees are run up when the sky is dry, which takes a short time. After all the broad “masses” of the “lay in” are dry and a clean palette has been arranged by the “paint boy” and the pots and pails holding the “lay in” are placed under the palette, “(a clear space is required for the many tints that are mixed on the palette, several small cups of dark purple and a strong rich color is used to emphasize the darks in the foreground) comes the careful work of finishing a landscape; strong shadows and half tones in foliage up to the strongest flickering of sunlight. We now take a little more time for our work. The “lay in” had to be done very quickly as it is very essential that the colors be kept will blend, which, in turn, makes the “cut up” easier. A drop representing a landscape 24×36 feet in size can be “laid in” with a lot of rough detail inside of two or three hours and retain wet edges.

As the distemper colors dry out several shades lighter t causes many anxious moments to a novice. There was no trouble with color fading or changing before fireproofing; it eats all the blue (especially Cobalt) out of purple, leaving a bad color, neither a blue nor red, which makes trouble for the artist.

In most cases, in painting a landscape, the artist endeavors to obtain his dark colors in the “lay in” so that when the “cut up” comes it will be all light colors. Most of the artists start to finish the drops from the foreground, getting the strength of the foreground first. Big, broad strokes are what count. It may look rather coarse close by, but when the completed scene is properly lighted you will find a surprise awaiting you. We know how to light a scene, but often some of our best effects are purely accidental. We follow these accidents up, develop them, and find soft, atmospheric color, all to be done with electricity.

Stock scenery for small halls and opera houses and for large vaudeville theatres has grown to be quite a business. Scenic studios have sprung up like mushrooms all over the country. To get the very best facilities for handling all sizes of scenery, the studio has to have a height of at least 54 feet, allowing a drop 30 feet high to be painted from a stationary floor, 24 feet from the basement floor. The width of the studio should be at least 50 feet and 150 feet in length. A building of these dimensions will accommodate fifteen paint frames, giving work for fifteen artists, five paint boys, four helpers to handle the scenery on and off the frames, two sewing women and six carpenters to build and prepare the frames for the scenes. This would constitute a first class studio and turn put a lot of work.”

To be continued…

Part 519: Palette & Chisel, October 1927 – The Design Process

Thomas G. Moses was a member of the Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago and contributed a variety of articles to their monthly newsletter during the late 1920s. His series for “Stage Scenery” started during September 1927

Here is the second part of Moses’ October installment to the Palette and Chisel newsletter during 1927:

“The artist makes a ground plan of the scene, scaled to one-half inch to the foot. The stage director approves of it, the model is made and every detail is worked out in the model. The recessed window calls for glass or the equivalent; a thin piece of mica or celluloid is glued on the model over the opening cut in the cardboard, the sash lines are drawn with heavy ink, and small bits of heraldry or stained glass are introduced. All the doors have the small thickness jambs, the floor is drawn in imitation of inlaid woods, the whole model is carefully colored and when completed is submitted to the stage director who, in turn, submits it to the playwright and the producing manager. If any minor changes are necessary they are made. When the model is O.K. it is turned over to the stage machinist and an estimate is made to build and prepare the scene for the artist who makes an estimate to paint the scene, which includes the cost of the model.

When the scene is ready for the artist it is placed on his frame. When painted, the machinist puts on the finishing hardware and lines. It is now ready to be moved to the theatre to be produced or rehearsed. The artist and stage machinist superintend the setting and lighting for the first time. It is then turned over to the stage director, and here is where the real hard part of the production comes. After many nights of labor on the scene, as well as long days in preparing the models and painting the scene, completely fatigued and ready for a good nights sleep, he must attend the rehearsal, supposed to be a scenic rehearsal. It is anything but that. The chances are that a umber of artists are interested as there are three or more acts and often a number of scenes to each act, each scene probably painted by a different artist; so each must wait until his act or scene is called. Lucky the fellow who has the first act for he is apt to get away before 10:00 P.M. The one with the forth act will probably get away about 3:00 A.M. for the director will probably go over an act several times before pronouncing it perfect. If this happens in the third act the artist of the fourth act is alone in his long waiting. After he is through and on his way back to New York City he will probably be almost unable to keep awake.

Most of the new productions of New York City are tried out for a week or so over in New Jersey, at Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Plainfeild or Elizabeth; they all have to stand for it, for that is about the only time they get any of the Broadway production, and the show soon hears from them. If it happens to be poor and the weak points are strengthened and rehearsed every day until they are in good shape for New York critics. The scenic decorations are supposed to be perfect; in fact, they must be perfect.

The scenic artist should know all branches of scenic art and not specialize too much. While it is almost impossible to be perfect in all branches, he should have a good knowledge of landscape, architecture, figures, free hand scroll, marines and drapery; in fact, about everything under the sun. While it is necessary for an artist to be absolutely correct in many details he very often has to gloss over a great many important points which are not noticeable to the public.

Within the past few years many of the stage interiors have solid wood wainscoting, six or seven feet high, very heavy door casing and thick jambs. These solid and realistic interiors are all right but even the relief ornaments and mouldings often have to be high lighted and the shadows made strong. The walls are usually made of some real fabric. So on these scenes there is very little work for the artist. Even in the exteriors the modern, up-to-date idea is to have a lot of artificial flowers and shrubs among the painted pieces.”

To be continued…

 

Part 518: Palette & Chisel, October 1927 – The Paint Studio

 

Thomas G. Moses was a member of the Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago and contributed a variety of articles to their monthly newsletter during the late 1920s. His series for “Stage Scenery” started during September 1927.

Here is the first part of the October installment during October 1927:

“The scenic artist has gradually drifted from the theatre to the scenic studios, where productions are designed, built and painted. The dramatic or operatic stock company employs its own artists and stage mechanics. The dramatic company usually has its scenery painted in the theatre. The opera company usually has so much scenery, and the greater part is carried over from year to year, that it has to have a large storehouse and usually combines a storehouse and paint room.

We visit the theatre studio first, picking our way down an unlighted alley until we find a door marked “STAGE ENTRANCE. NO ADMITTANCE.” The fine old crab who guards the door is one of the “down and outs” of the profession. He has held all of the good positions offered by the profession and he will tell you: “Me and Booth played together at Oshkosh.” He was quite likely, a property man or stage hand, hardly veer an actor or scenic artist. He is usually deaf, but his sense of feeling and seeing are very acute, so a piece of silver felt and seen opens the door and one is directed to the stairway which is found in the corner, is circular in shape and built of iron.

After a dizzying climb of thirty feet above the stage floor you will land on a solid floor called a “fly floor,” From here all scenery which is fastened to a set of lines, is raised and lowered. The drop curtain is also managed from here. In the modern theatre all of this work is done from the stage floor level. Thousands of feet of half-inch rope is required to handle the scenery, to say nothing of the steel cable that I used.

You feel your way along the rail called the “Pin rail”; to this all of the lines are fastened. You will see a bright light at the rear of the stage; this is the “paint bridge” – six feet wide and reaching from one fly floor to the other. Between this bridge and the back wall is hung the paint frame, also one on the other side of the bridge. These two frames are skeleton frames, as light as possible, but strong enough to hold the frame pieces of scenery of the drops and borders to be painted. These are operated from the floor by a windlass; plenty of counterweights are used to balance the heavy load of scenery. Everything that hangs is operated over pulleys placed on the “gridiron,” sixty feet above the stage floor. A “strip” light is necessary for painting. The artist has a designing room on the fly floor. The palette is two feet wide and eight feet long, two feet and six inches high, mounted on a table with castors. A smooth surface is required for mixing of tints, a set of palette bowls, each six inches in diameter, about sixteen in number and filled with the colors mixed in the pure state with water – other tints are mixed in pans or small pails; a pail of glue size and a pail of clean water, a few brushes. A few strong strokes, with a crayon stick filled with charcoal, you see the design and the painting starts immediately.

In this case we will not do any painting until we find out just what it is going to be. Before any actual work is done the playwright has to give over the manuscript to the manager who has agreed to produce it. The stage director is called in and sometimes whole scenes are cut in spite of anything the playwright may say. He often rehearses the play. If he is a big man, with a reputation, he pays no attention to any one and does as he pleases. When everything is O.K.’d by everyone the manuscript is handed to the scenic artist who, in turn, reads it very carefully and makes notes of the principal “business bits” which are usually marks with red ink. This is very important, as the playwright has fitted the scenes and play together and has specified as follows: “Act 1. Scene 1. A library – Tudor Gothic – one large arch C – fireplace R C – recessed window with seat, doors down L door 2-R night. Place, any place in England, early Nineteenth Century.” By making notes and reading carefully we find a character opens and enters the recessed window, necessitating a different construction; door down right must open on stage.”

To be continued…

 

 

 

Part 517: Palette & Chisel, September 1927

 Thomas G. Moses was a member of the Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago and contributed a variety of articles to their monthly newsletter during the late 1920s. There were many scenic artists who were members of this art club. However, “Uncle Tom” was the leader of the group and the last president of the largest scenery firm in Chicago by 1915. I have included his articles about sketching trips from the 1880s that were printed in the newsletter, but here is his series of articles about the artistic process of painting stage scenery. His series for “Stage Scenery” started during September 1927. At the time, Moses was 71 years old.

The editor of the newsletter introduces Moses and his series of articles:

“Stage Scenery How it is Painted. Tom Moses Tells the Tricks of the Trade.

This is the first article of a group by Thomas G. Moses to be printed serially in the Palette and Chisel. For over a half century Tom Moses has designed and painted stage settings for productions that were famous in their time. He was associated with the famous scenic firm of Sosman and Landis which eventually became just Tom Moses though the old firm name still flies at the mast head. In this first offering, Mr. Moses tells about the mimic world in which he works; he tells of the “sets”, how and why they are made, while analyzing some o their production from the managerial and technical standpoint. This article (continued) will acquaint the reader with everyday work and problems of the scenic artist. Later Mr. Moses will tell of the sketching trips in search of new material, made to out of the way places. The first trip is dated 1884.” 

Here is Moses’ first installment to the Palette and Chisel newsletter:

“Stage Scenery 1918

The first movable scenery was invented and painted by an Italian artist by the name of Peruzzi and used in a play called “La Calandra”, which was presented before Pope Leo X in 1508, and the further developments of his inventions, which were thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the age, led to the necessity of a recessed stage with a frame, like a picture.

Shakespeare used placards naming the different scenes, as “This is a street,” “This is a forest,” etc. A few of Shaekespeare’s disciples attempted to do this even to this advanced age, but with very little success, for it leaves too much for the imagination.

Scenery in connection with the legitimate drama or Grand Opera must be very authentic in design and truthful in color. In a “Spectacle,” “Light Opera,” “Musical Comedy,” “Burlesque,” or “Vaudeville” acts, a scenic artist can go the limit on design and give the public a riot of color, and in return for this they will howl with delight.

Thirty years ago most of the scenery was painted in the theatre, a room or paint bridge being arranged on the stage of adjoining room for that purpose. Each theatre furnished the necessary sets for the traveling company, which was headed by some big star. In the larger cities, the theatre employed a scenic artist and an assistant to keep regular stock scenery in good condition and to supply and special scene needed. While the regular stock scenery in each theatre was nearly complete there was always a call for some scene not to be found in stock. As the scene plot was sent ahead and turned over to the scenic artist, the required scene was built and painted. Often the scene was painted on an old drop, or over old framed wings.

The big spectacles, similar to the Kiralfy’s immense production, or the well-known Black Crook, had to carry all of their scenery, several car-loads, for it would cost a fortune to paint anything for these shows. At the present time nearly everyone carries scenery, and, as a rule, a lot of it.

In the early days of scene painting in America, the majority of the artists were of English descent; many of them had a weakness for the flowing bowl, and many tales have been told of several artists and what beautiful scenes they would paint while in their cups. As a rule an artist has to be in a very normal condition to paint any kind of a scene and then he will often fall down on the job.”

To be continued…

 

Part 516: Palette and Chisel Club, the Camp Tradition Draws Members to Fox Lake

The Palette and Chisel camp at Fox Lake, Illinois, was a scenic retreat for members of to escape the daily grind of Chicago. The town was incorporated on Dec. 15, 1906, and certified by the state on April 3, 1907. Located on the south shore of Pistakee Lake, Nippersink Lake, and Fox Lake, the three connected water bodies formed the Chain O’Lakes system. Early in the 20^th century, there were only a few hundred inhabitants who were residents of Fox Lake and lived in the area year round. However, during the summer months the population could reach thousands, as area hotels and cottages filled to their capacity.

Thomas G. Moses first visiting Fox Lake camp in 1907. I discovered an undated copy of a newspaper article about the camp at the Harry Ransom Center; this was during my research visit in 2016. The article was simply titled “The Camp Tradition Draws Members to Fox Lake,” and describes the appeal of the location so well. Here is the article in its entirety

 

“When the green gits in the trees” and the birds begin their annual house-planning campaign, Palette and Chisel Club members naturally experience sundry tugs and nudges which they ascribe to the lure of the camp. That time is now and we bow to its influence.

Andy why has the Club Camp such a hold on the affections of our members? Not, surely, because there are no other places for out door sketching. It is equally convenient for most members to visit the hundreds of other small lakes within easy distance of this city, or the Desplaines and Fox rivers of the Dune Country of northern Indiana. The Forest Preserves, the Chicago river and harbor, our older streets and buildings are even closer at hand.

No, it is not the convenience nor the suitability of the Club Camp that gives it a hold on us. It is the tradition it embodies and makes real.

For three decades a camp in the vicinity of Fox Lake has been a recognized Club institution. The actual location has changed several times. Sometimes it has been close to the water, sometimes near the top of the low hills which surround the lake. The present site was elected by Tom Moses and the late Dave Adam, and their choice was immediately ratified by the erection of a more pretentious camp building that we have ever before aspired to own.

At the time there were no other buildings in the neighborhood. In every direction one could gaze without interference upon nature undefiled. Now, to be sure, many resort cottages more or less adorn the surrounding hills, but they are neither numerous nor close enough to interpret work or pleasure at the Camp.

Those, however, who no longer feel contented to paint on the camp grounds can still make the Camp their headquarters while sketching in the vicinity. There are many desirable scenes within ease walking distance, and no one will deny that it is more inspiring to seek them out in company with fellow workers that to wander alone from some commercial beanery where there is no feeling of companionship or similarity of aims and tastes.

It is, in fact, this very companionship which constitutes the lure of the Camp. It is the companionship which keeps alive the Camp tradition. It stands high among the things which make our Club worth while. Let us all join hands in fostering and profiting by it.

C.H.C.”

To be continued…

Part 515: The Palette & Chisel Club – Fox Lake

In 1906, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “I joined the Palette and Chisel Club at the Chicago Society of Artists. I don’t know why, as I had so little time to give to pictures, but I live in hopes of doing something some day, that is what I have lived on for years, Hope, and how little we realize from our dreams of hope. As the years roll by, I think one’s whole life is one continuous dream, unless we are wonderfully gifted and fame drops on us while we sleep.” Moses was a member of another fine art society before joining the Palette & Chisel Club. In 1904, he became a member of the Salmagundi Club in New York, sponsored by R. M. Shurtleff.

The year that Moses joined the Palette and Chisel Club, the group consisted of sixty local painters, illustrators, and sculptors. The Chicago Tribune reported that it was “primarily a working club, being the oldest organization in the west” (Chicago Tribune, 6 Jan. 1906, page 2). That year, the club’s new enterprise was the maintenance of a permanent exhibition in the clubrooms on the seventh floor of the Athenæum building.

Founded in 1895, the Palette & Chisel Club was an association of artists and craftsmen for the purpose of work and study. The organization’s members were reported to be “all wage-workers, busy during the week with pencil, brush or chisel, doing work to please other people” (Inland Printer, 1896). But on Sunday mornings, they assembled for five hours to paint for themselves.

In 1905, the members of the Palette and Chisel Club established a seasonal camp at Fox Lake, Illinois. In the beginning it was quite rustic. Of the camping experience, Moses wrote, “June 1^st, I made my first trip to the Palette and Chisel Club camp at Fox Lake, Ill. Helped to put up the tent. A new experience for me, but I enjoyed it. I slept well on a cot. Made a few sketches. A very interesting place. I don’t like the cooking in the tent and there should be a floor in the tent. I saw a great many improvements that could be made in the outfit and I started something very soon.”

The Palette and Chisel Club camp drew a variety of artists during the summer months. An artistic community was formed along the shores of Fox Lake, providing a haven far away from the hustle and bustle of work in Chicago. There were many Sosman & Landis employees who also became members of the Palette & Chisel Club, escaping to Fox Lake whenever they could. In 2014, I discovered a map on the backside of a stage drop in Winona, Minnesota. This was while we were putting the Scottish Rite scenery into temporary storage. The map was located near the top batten, scribbled in pencil. Around this same time, I came discovered an artist’s cartoon depicting the Fox Lake area.

In 1908, Moses wrote, “I bought the portable house that we built years ago and at that time we received $300.00 for it. I finally got it for $50.00, some bargain. It cost $25.00 to remove it and we will put it up at Fox Lake in the Spring. It has been used in Forest Park all summer to show “The Day in the Alps.”

By 1909, Moses wrote, “As we had put up the portable house in Fox Lake, I was better contented to go up. I gave the camp a portable kitchen and it was some class. I felt sure I would manage to get a camp outfit worth while and the boys all fell in line with me.”

Moses enjoyed his scenic retreats to Fox Lake, escaping from the hard grind of the studio whenever he could during the summer. He painted numerous landscapes of Fox Lake and the Palette & Chisel camp house over the years, but it was one painting labeled “Fox Lake, 1909” that came to my attention in 2017. The small artwork prompted my travel to Maui in 2017 to meet the owner of the painting – Moses’ great-grandson. I first contacted him during 1996 while working on “Theatre of the Fraternity,” a touring museum exhibit curated by Lance Brockman. Twenty years went by before I received a response from Moses’ great grandson; it was during the spring of 2016, just before the elimination of my position as Curatorial Director at the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. Some things are just meant to be, and I returned to Minnesota during the fall of 2017 with several of Moses’ paintings, including three small ones depicting Fox Lake in 1909.

In 1910, Moses wrote, “Fox Lake appealed to me all summer. I went up as much as possible and made good use of my time. How I wished in vain for time and money to spend all summer sketching. I know I could do something worthwhile.” Regardless of his own opinion, Moses was making progress in the eyes of Palette and Chisel Club members. By 1912 the Palette and Chisel Club honored Thomas G. Moses by giving him a big dinner and a new nickname – “Uncle Tom” of the Club.

By 1913, Moses was still spending time at Fox Lake, writing, “I enjoyed the summer at Fox Lake, as the motor boat kept us busy and I enjoyed the water. I also did quite a number of sketches, a few very good, balance rather doubtful.” That same year, he wrote, “The Palette and Chisel Club boys wanted me to give an exhibit at the club. I always refused, claiming that I am not in the picture game, and paint pictures for pleasure only. September 3^rd, a committee came to the house and insisted on going to the studio, I had over three hundred pictures in the studio; some very good but the other 275 were not as good, but the boys seemed to think I had at least 250 good ones, which was quite flattering.” That year, Moses also commented, “The Palette and Chisel Club were anxious to buy a lot near the lake, but we found it would cost too much.” Yet the search for a new home continued the following year.

In 1914, Moses wrote, “Early in April a number of Palette and Chisel Club boys, including myself, went to Fox Lake to look for a new site. We didn’t find anything worthwhile, so we will remain where we are for another season… Miss Maude Oliver, Art Critic of the Herald, wanted to see the animals fed and housed, so she went to Fox Lake to the camp. She requested that we all act perfectly natural and not put on any frills and do nothing out of the ordinary to entertain her. I never saw a bunch act worse. It was awful. I think she got plenty of local color and artistic atmosphere for her article in the Sunday Herald the next week – convinced me that she had drunk a glass full of camp life…I am not very regular at Fox Lake this year and I miss sketching. I also miss my rocks and running brooks. I have to go some distance for that kind of a motive.”

By 1915, Moses commented about the Palette and Chisel Club’s new site on Fox Lake, “April 17^th a crowd of us went to Fox Lake and took down the old house and moved it to our new site south of the track on a very high hill, overlooking Pistakee Bay. Got the carpenter and lumberyard men together and we arranged for credit and ordered the material for a new house 22 x 50, was soon ready for members. We certainly got great sport in assisting the carpenter. Pretty hard work for an artist, but they all did very well.”

The next few years include only a few sporadic entries in Moses’ memoirs. In 1917, Moses wrote, “I went to Fox Lake on Decoration Day, official opening. I had a new cot sent up and it was certainly and improvement over the old one. I actually rest now and enjoy going up.” In 1918, Moses wrote, “I have not been out to Fox Lake this year, the first I have missed in twelve years. The business is in such an upset condition that I felt I should stick to it.” In 1919, Moses and his son Rupert made several trips to Fox Lake where he made a few sketches. He wrote, “It is very nice to make the trip in a car, as we made it in three hours. The roads were not any too good.”

By 1920, Moses wrote, “Early in June I went to Fox Lake to see about tearing down the club houses and moving them to another place…I go up to Fox Lake every Saturday, looking after the house and I hope to complete it on time.” By this time, Moses had been venturing up to paint at Fox Lake for thirteen years. His interest in the area would soon wane. At the time, he was traveling quite a bit to California for work, and writes of the West Coast’s appeal to artists. By 1922, Moses wrote, “I made one trip to Fox Lake Camp. It is not the same, and I am very sorry to say that I have lost interest in it, besides I feel that all the good sketching had been worked to death.” He did not write about Fox Lake again.

To be continued…

 

 

Part 514: Victor Higgins and the Sketching Trip to Oldenburg, Indiana, 1910

In past posts I have examined scenic artists who traveled across the country to gather material and hone their artistic skills! Thomas G. Moses recorded and submitted descriptions of many nineteenth-century sketching trips to the Palette and Chisel Club Newsletter during the 1920s. The “Brookville Democrat” published an article in 1910 about Victor Higgins and a group of artists who traveled to Oldenburg, Indiana, for a sketching trip. The article was “Artists From Chicago Spend Two Weeks at Oldenburg Making Sketches” (Brookville, Indiana, 6 Oct. 1910, page 1). Seven Palette and Chisel Club members visited east-central Indiana for four weeks during 1910. They stayed two weeks in the primarily German village of Oldenburg, one of the oldest communities in the state.

The artists secured lodging at the Gibson Hotel, run by Joseph Merchen. At the end of their trip, the hotel displayed 130 landscapes that were painted during their stay. One of these paintings, however, portrayed the group playing a game of pool. Each artist was painted with his palette overhead, depicting how he arranged his colors. Each portrait was attributed to a specific member of the group. The Oldenburg painting collection was again exhibited again at the Pallette & Chisel Club upon their return. The Chicago exhibit did not include the group painting, as it was a gift to Oldenburg community. The trip was described in a local newspaper:

“Seven artists of the Palette and Chisel Club spent two weeks of hard work at Oldenburg and vicinity. The Palette and Chisel Club was founded fifteen years ago when the advanced students of the Art Institute of Chicago felt the need of a club in which each could “ride his own hobby,” apart from school and yet be organized. In their meeting they relate their experiences gained from private work and observation, and thus mutually help each other. Although the organization began with but a few members, it has steadily increased and now boasts of a hundred members. It includes members from some of the best art schools of this country as well as abroad.

Those members that visited our county follow different lines of work. Mr. H. L. Engle is an expert in the restoration of old masterpieces. Mr. O. E. Hake is one of the faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. He is a designer and illuminator for the leading editors and authors. Mr. J. E. Phillips is a noted commercial artist. Mr. R. I. Ingerle is a noted member and officer of the Chicago Society of Artists and a member of the Western Society. Mr. August Petrytl is a designer and illustrator. Mr. L. O. Griffith follows the same line of work. Mr. Victor Higgins is proficient in painting theatrical stage scenes.

The Palette and Chisel Club send some of its members out every year to make their own choice. Some of the men who were here have traveled abroad and through the west and southwest of our country. This year through the influence of Mr. Higgins, we were honored with their visit.

During their stay here they have made one-hundred-thirty landscape sketches. Most of their work was exhibited at the Gibson House, where they had their headquarters, on Friday evening. The artists expressed surprise when told that there had been no other artists here before now to make paintings of the beautiful scenery that nature has so liberally scattered in these parts. They say that there is material enough here for years of work, and they will try to come back again in the near future.”

First of all, the artists are listed for their professions; Higgins is noted as a scenic artist in 1910. Secondly, it was Higgins who suggested the area. Finally, by 1910, the year of the sketching trip, the membership of the Palette & Chisel Club had grown to one hundred members, a significant number. The seven artists from the sketching trip also represented in the M. Christine Schwartz Collection (https://schwartzcollection.com/). This Collection is a privately owned collection, consisting of paintings by mid-nineteenth- to the mid-twentieth-century Chicago artists. Included are landscapes, portraits, city views, still lifes, and figural works in a variety of academic and modernist styles. The Oldenburg group painting is now part of the Schwartz Collection.

The seven artists who journeyed to Oldenburg are quite fascinating when examined as a whole. What an exciting and interesting trip in 1910. Here is a brief description of the artists who accompanied Higgins on the sketching trip:

L. Engle was, Harry Leon Engle (1870-1968). Engle was listed in the American Art Directory of 1907-1908 as the president of the Palette & Chisel Club. A well-respected and talented landscape painter, he wrote articles about the contemporary art scene in Chicago and organized the Chicago Galleries Association. Engle later became director of the association. Engle was a Palette & Chisel gold medal winner in 1923.

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August Petrytl (1867-1937). Petrytl designed numerous illustrations for books and even designed a green spade tarot deck in 1921. Known for his painting of historical figures, Petrytl was president of the Palette & Chisel Club in 1906. His portrait by Joseph Kleitch hung on a dining room at the Palette and Chisel club.

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Louis Oscar Griffith (1875-1956). Griffith was born in Greencastle, Indiana, and moved to Texas during his youth. He attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and the Chicago Art Institute, later moving to Chicago to work as a commercial illustrator. He was noted for his skills in oil painting, watercolors, woodblocks and etching. He was the Palette and Chisel Club gold medal winner in 1921.

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Otto Eugene Hake (1876-1965) was born in Ulm, Germany and immigrated to the United States as a teenager. After apprenticing with a wood carver in St. Louis, Hake traveled to Chicago in 1892. In Chicago, Hake worked as an engraver and illustrator for the Binner-Wells Company. He fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898, later earning American citizenship at the age of twenty-one. Hake entered the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and received his first mural commission for a public high school that year. He worked as an illustrator and designer, but was best known for his murals. Hake became the president of the Palette & Chisel Club by 1910. He was also the editor of the Palette & Chisel Club journal, called “The Cow Bell.” He traveled abroad in 1912 to study at the Académie Colarossi in Paris and at the Debschitz Academy in Munich. He was the Palette and Chisel gold medal winner in 1935.

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Rudolph F. Ingerle (1879-1950) was the son of Moravian parents, born in Vienna. His immigrated to the United States as a child, eventually settling in Chicago around 1891. Ingerle studied music before becoming an artist. He was a student at Smith’s Art Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, and a private pupil Walter Dean Goldbeck. Ingerle joined Carl Krafft and several St. Louis artists to found the Society of Ozark Painters. He later focused on the Blue Ridge and the Cumberland Mountains during the 1920s. He and Hake went on trips to the Great Smoky Mountains where he became well-known in the region. Ingerle was a founding member of the North Shore Art League in 1924 and served as its first president. He was also the president of the Chicago Society of Artists, and a member of the Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors. In 1920 Ingerle won a gold medal from the Bohemian Art Club of Chicago. He was the Palette and Chisel gold medal winner in 1929.

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John E. Phillips (1848- ?) I have uncovered very little information about Phillips, other than his birthdate and prints of a few paintings. He was the president of the Palette and Chisel Club in 1916.

To be continued…

Part 513: A Biography of Victor Higgins by Mary Carroll Nelson

As I was looking for information about Victor Higgins, I encountered an article written by Mary Carroll Nelson for “American Artist” in January 1978. The article was posted at “The Old Palette, Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Chicago’s Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art” (Chris Miller, April 1, 2018). It is a little long, but an interesting read:

A Biography of Victor Higgins — by Mary Carroll Nelson

“OF THE FIRST eight Taos artists it was Victor Higgins who led the field in creativity. Less content than the others with the dicta of academic painting, Higgins was open to the currents of change in art. He was born into a large farm family of Irish extraction in Shelbyville, Indiana, on June 28, 1884. An itinerant sign painter introduced him to the wonders of paint and filled his head with “art talk” when Higgins was nine. Farming didn’t interest Higgins. At 15 he went to Chicago and remained there, studying and later teaching at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In 1910 he went to Europe and studied for four years: in Paris, at the Academie de Ia Grande Chaumier under Rene Menard and Lucien Simon; and in Munich under Hans Von Heuck. When he returned, his style was urbane, though monotonous in color. His touch was sure in pastoral landscapes and museum copies. Victor Higgins did not seek out the experimental leaders of Parisian art circles when he was in Europe, and he seemed to miss entirely the Post-Impressionist ferment of Cezanne’s analytical composition and Matisse’s emotional color. While in Paris Higgins met Walter Ufer, a rough, blunt man who also had lived in Chicago. Higgins was a shy, retiring person; Ufer was an aggressive extrovert; but they got along well, attracted perhaps by their different natures. They shared a mutual antagonism for academic subject matter though they had sought academic instruction, they regretted the lack of international recognition for American art and agreed that their country needed an identifiable art of its own.

In 1914, back in Chicago, Victor Higgins was offered a commission by Carter H. Harrison, a wealthy buyer of his work who had been a long time mayor of the city, to do a landscape of Taos. Carter paid Higgins’s way to Taos for the painting trip and underwrote his expenses. He did the same for Walter Ufer. Higgins went first to Santa Fe, where he met Sheldon Parsons, unofficial greeter of visiting artists to New Mexico. He stayed a brief time and was entertained by the widower Parsons and his teenage daughter, Sara, who was his hostess. Shortly afterwards Higgins continued his trip to Taos and in 1915 was invited to join the Taos Society of Artists. Ernest Blumenschein described Higgins: “I gathered from his good breeding, soft-spoken voice, and gentle manner that his boyhood was uneventful. He was not a strong, virile character like Ufer, but one of hesitating sensitive nature. Higgins felt out his compositions with a broad, sweeping style and masses of color en rapport. He had a painter’s style.” Blumenschein refers to Higgins as “the dreamer” as opposed to the realist.

The original six Taos artists were well known in Chicago, and Higgins had been anxious to see the village for himself. When he arrived, 16 years after Phillips and Blumenschein’s arrival, Taos had become a recognized, if distant, art center. In 1916, two years after Higgins moved to Taos, the clouds of war drove Mabel Dodge from her salon in Paris back to America. She and her husband Maurice Sterne traveled to Taos in search of a remote, romantic environment. Though Maurice Sterne stayed only two years, it was he who invited Andrew Dasburg to Taos. Dasburg brought with him an enthusiasm for and understanding of Cubism. Mabel Dodge divorced Sterne, married Taos Indian Tony Luhan, and remained as a magnet to the talented. She was a stimulator of events and a generous sponsor who aided others. The other artists of Taos were less affected by this dramatic woman than Victor Higgins, but he at times was a part of her circle, and he took pleasure in a contemporary exploration of aesthetics. At first, however, his paintings continued to be set pieces. Elegant and increasingly spare, they featured Indian figures in repose. He made an effort to vary the focus of his paintings. It is noteworthy that Higgins was never an illustrator but always an “easel painter.” He dispensed with detail that is characteristic of illustration and concentrated on composition.

Taos, with its fresh pictorial possibilities, deeply satisfied him. He once flamboyantly wrote, “The West is composite, and it fascinates me. In the West are forests as luxurious as the forests of Fontainebleau or Lebanon , desert lands as alluring as the Sahara, and mountains most mysterious. Caflons and mesa that reveal the construction of the earth, with walls just as fantastic as facades of Dravidian Temples. An architecture, also fast disappearing, as homogeneous as the structures of Palestine and the northern coast of Africa; and people as old as the peoples of history, with customs and costumes as ancient as their traditions. And all this is not the shifting of playhouse scenes but the erosion and growth of thousands of years, furrowed for centuries by Western rains, dried by Western winds, and baked by Western suns. Nearly all that the world has, the West has in nature, fused with its own eternal self.”

In 1919 Victor Higgins married Sara Parsons. He was 35, she was 18. Their first home was one provided by Mabel Dodge Luhan (later they rented a house on Ledoux Street, right across from the Blumenschein house). It was a long series of rooms attached together in the adobe style with primitive facilities. Other aspects of life were of a high order-particularly conversation. Victor Higgins was a favored raconteur with an Irish gift for storytelling. Sara Higgins found the social side of her shared life enjoyable and was especially fond of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who was a good friend to her. However, in private Victor Higgins was a single-minded artist, not given to small talk. He also had strong opinions about the role of woman as helpmate to the husband. The marriage was one of incompatibles, for Sara Parsons Higgins was a spirited, talented, athletic young woman who required outlets for her prodigious abilities and had always enjoyed an adult, stimulating life with her father. The marriage ended in 1924, much to Higgins’ sorrow. He loved his beautiful, red-haired wife and cherished their daughter, Joan, born in 1922. Their relationship became that of dear friends, without rancor, and extended to include Robert Mack, Sara’s second husband of over 40 years. The influence of Sara’s powerfully discerning eye during their brief marriage was important in the career of Victor Higgins, for she steered him toward a more stark style, away from a tendency to theatrics and decoration.

Higgins was a handsome man, gray eyed, brown-haired, of medium build, who always had a trim mustache and neatly barbered head. In his studio or on location he painted while dressed formally in a white shirt and tie. His so-called “Little Gems,” which were painted outdoors in all weather, were sometimes produced by Higgins wearing hat, suit, and coat. To Higgins there was no apparent incongruity in the professional formality of his attire and the usual messiness of a painter’s gear, for he was fastidious in his handling of paint. He gave concise, useful critiques as a teacher and helped many young artists. At a party he was an asset. But he kept the world at bay from his intimate feelings and beliefs.

Though Higgins lived as a bachelor most of his life, he was no recluse. His biographer, Dean Porter, traces a second Taos period in Higgins’s work that began around 1920. He selects the one abstract statement Higgins ever painted, Circumferences, as a breakthrough and a talisman of the mystic nature of the artist. It could not have been painted by any of the other artists in the Taos Society of Artists, and it’s atypical of Higgins, but it does show a capacity in the artist to step away from subject matter as such and to become ever more purely a creator of a painting. However one analyzes it, there’s a change in brushwork, color, and subject matter that enlivens Higgins’s work after 1920, separating it still farther from that of other Taos artists. Brushwork in the earlier Higgins was free and juicy, but in later work it takes on a more graphic quality. He searched for the basic form of the nearby mountain and decided it was a series of diagonal slabs. Clouds became flat strata of varying lengths receding in space. The valley became a series of stripes or a rickrack of color. The essentials of form gradually took precedence over accidents of appearance.

Meeting John Marin in 1929 and painting on fishing trips with him came at a perfectly timed moment in Higgins’s life. He was already moving toward simplification, and he enjoyed watercolor as much as oil. There is a pronounced kinship between Higgins’s watercolors and those Marin did in New Mexico in their reduction and calligraphic symbolism. One would be at a loss, however, to separate the influence and determine whose was more powerful, for Higgins was in his own habitat and had a staccato style before he met Marin. Of the early Taos artists, Higgins alone excelled in watercolors. He made many contributions to American art that were varied and commanding, but none were more so than his watercolors, which add greatly to the American history of the medium and yet have received less than ‘their rightful recognition. The older Higgins grew, the more he was able to do with the least means. He developed private schema for pine trees, clouds, earth, and adobes that rank him with Charles Burchfield in creative expression in watercolor. Winter Funeral is perhaps Higgins’s best known oil. Below the greenish gray Taos mountains on the snow covered mesa, the funeral is made to seem pathetically unimportant and small when compared to the large scale of the setting. It is a lonely, harsh, and haunting scene-a complete statement that stands as one of the finest paintings in the history of American landscape. It also marks, for Higgins, an end to the figure in landscape and the beginning of landscape for its own sake, something the other artists in Taos did not paint with the same concentration. In addition to his landscapes, Higgins shared two other interests with the work of Cezanne. One was the introduction of still lifes, especially flowers on slightly tilted tabletops, and the other was figure studies, done in the studio, whose power rests on design and abstraction. Victor Higgins had a distinguished career.

In 1921 he was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design after winning many major prizes in Chicago and New York. He was one of the Taos artists asked to paint murals for the State Capitol of Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1935 he was elected to full membership in the National Academy. His sales were not so steady as some of the other artists in Taos, but he aligned himself with a shrewd Chicago dealer who once had his work placed in some new homes and made a major sale, for which Higgins received a check for over $10,000.

He participated less in exhibitions in his later years. Although he did not achieve the popular success accorded to Couse, Sharp, Blumenschein, and Ufer, he did enjoy esteem from the art community. In the last five years of Victor Higgins ‘s life, from the mid to the late ’40s, he did a series of fresh, small landscapes that synthesized his proficiency with the brush and his intensified vision: These are called his ” Little Gems” and were noted by Ernest Blumenschein in the introduction to Bickerstaff’s book: “His last group of pictures I shall never forget. They were done on sketching trips around Taos Valley and in the Rio Grande Canyon. In them was the best Higgins quality, a lyrical charm added to his lovely color. His art had developed in [an] intellectual side through his adventure with Dynamic Symmetry and other abstract angles. Not that he used mechanical formulas. He always had, as do most good artists, an instinct that guided his form structure… and he put all he had into this dozen of small canvases. They must have been about eighteen wide by ten inches high. All works of love; love of his simple subjects and of his craftsmanship. These pictures had the ‘extra something’ that the right artist can put into his work when he is ‘on his toes.’ ” The “Little Gems” have become the most sought after of Higgins’s work. Not just once but time after time he created paintings with economy and power, about which a viewer could truthfully say there isn’t a stroke out of place or unnecessary to the whole.

While dining with his friends the Thomas Benrimoses, Higgins was stricken with a heart attack and died in Taos on August 23, 1949. As Sara Mack has stated, Victor Higgins was articulate about art. In an interview with Ina Sizer Cassidy in 1932, he made these statements that clarify his ideas and career: “The term reality is greatly misunderstood. It does not mean the ability to copy nature as most people seem to think; it means more than that, the reality of being. The difference between the modernistic and the romantic form of art, as I see it, is the architectural basis. The modern painter builds his picture, he does not merely paint it. He has his superstructure, his foundation, just as an architect has for his buildings.” When he was asked why he liked to paint in Taos, Higgins spoke of color and added, “And besides this, there is a constant call here to create something.”

There was no mention of his continued work for the theater. Did the author know that he was a scenic artist, or was it not considered an artistic contribution?

To be continued…

Here is the link to the “This Old Palette” post: http://thisoldpalette.blogspot.com/2018/04/biography-of-victor-higgins.html

 

Part 512: Victor Higgins and the Taos Society of Artists

In 1914, Carter H. Harrison funded a second artistic trip for Victor Higgins and Walter Ufer; a year-long trip to Taos in exchange for eight paintings! Higgins and Ufer were two alums from the Chicago Institute of Art who had previously studied in Europe together. The meat-packing tycoon Oscar Mayer, also contributed financially on Ufer’s behalf for this trip. Higgins stayed in Taos, as the Taos Society of Artists was formed in 1915. Higgins became president of the Society and remained a member until the society’s dissolution in 1927.

Although Higgins spent much of his time in the southwest, he continued to return to Chicago for Sosman & Landis. A picture published in “Scene Painting and Bulletin Art” during 1916, depicted Higgins painting a drop curtain at the Sosman & Landis studio in Chicago.

While living in Taos, Higgins focused on painting the Pueblo people and landscapes, writing “This strong primitive appeal calls out the side of art that is not derivative; it urges the painter to get his subjects, his coloring, his tone from the real life about him, not from the wisdom of the studios.” Art historians note that around this time Higgins abandoned many of the traditional approaches to fine art that he had learned in Europe, specifically incorporating the vibrant colors of the landscape and painted his subjects as realistically as possible. This same infusion of color, however, also occurred in the world of scenic art as the shadow colors increase in vibrancy. Some drops painted this time begin to be dominated by ultramarine blue. By the 1920s, this would become more prevalent, but I wonder if Higgins may have been the leading force in the movement at the scenic studio.

As Higgins periodically returned to Chicago, he exhibited his southwestern artworks at the Palette and Chisel Club and the Art Institute of Chicago, dominating the juried exhibitions. He also exhibited works in Indianapolis and New York, with the occasional show in Europe.

By 1921, Higgins convinced four wealthy collectors to fund two years of travel to paint. These would become two of the most productive and experimental years in his career, allowing him to expand on his paint atmospherics with brilliant colors. Looking at Higgins’ economy of brush stroke, one could parallel these techniques with his scenic art for the stage. Historical backdrops produced by the Sosman & Landis studio reflected the hand of their creator. Because the same compositions were being replicated over and over again, it is possible to trace the work of individual artists. The brush work for foliage, marble work, and draperies, are like a signature.

In 1926, Higgins said, “The transcription of a natural scene to paint on canvas is analogous to handwriting. It is to be presumed that an artist knows the mechanics of his art; knows how to handle his tools, just as an author is assumed to have mastered the mechanical task of writing. In both cases, the art of the thing is beyond that. The artist does not merely depict the scene; he digests it; he expresses an emotional reaction. He does not try to compete for accuracy with a colored photograph. The whole modern movement is back to three-dimensional form. Impressionism was a scientific investigation of light. Esthetically we have discovered that while impressionism moved art out-of-doors and gave us cognizance of new factors, the really vital thing is form, rather than light” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 16 Jan. 1926, page 38).

The “Honolulu Star-Bulletin” reported that in Hawaii, Higgins commented, “diffused light, which is more than direct light, modifies forms, [and] is somewhat similar here to that in desert country, to which it takes a newcoming painter perhaps two to three tears to become accustomed” (16 Jan. 1926, page 38). It was the diffused light and the distant mountains that appealed to Higgins, Thomas G. Moses and many other scenic artists, as they developed landscapes for the stage.

Higgins was further quoted, “I consider that the mountain country – in New Mexico, in Hawaii, anywhere – is a reservoir of strength. Whether they know it or not, the mountain people are building up a spiritual force that will be valuable to the country. In every crisis, the man or the idea has appeared, and for these crises the mountains are building the reserve of power.” The article explained that this idea was expanded upon in Higgins’ painting “The Valley of Waiting Souls,” – “a scene in which the height and distance of mountains interpret a certain ‘waiting’ attitude in these geological formations, and the idea is carried further by groups of human figures: ‘The mountains wait, and the people wait with them.’”

In 1929 Higgins was invited to participate at the Museum of Modern Art’s second exhibit. That same year, Moses mentions Higgins stopping by to visit him in California on February 14th. Higgins and his wife were in town to settle the estate of their nephew, Theodore Roberts, a famous movie star. In regard to Higgins’ personal life, he was briefly married to Sara Parsons, the daughter of Sheldon Parsons. The union resulted in one child – Joan Higgins. Later, he married Marion Kooglen McNay of San Antonio (1937-1940). McNay was the wealthy daughter of an oil baron with multiple marriages behind her. An artist in her own right, McNay had been trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and also worked as an art instructor. Little is said of these his relationships.

As many artists, Higgins suffered financially in his final years and began painting small scenes on boards that he called “Little Gems.” He would drive his car to a picturesque area, open his trunk and paint scenes for passersby. It is noted that he worked in a shirt and tie or full three-piece suit. I was not surprised by this description when looking at images of scenic artists who worked at studio paint frames in business attire. After all, they were the top professionals at the studio and dressed the part. It was the paint boys who wore overalls. Smoking a cigar with a paint box on his lap, Higgins sold these small artworks for approximately $250.00.

Higgins continued to paint until his death on Aug. 23, 1949. His painter’s box, easel, palette and stool, now hang in a replica of Higgins’ studio inside the Eiteljorg Museum. Here is the link for the museum: https://www.eiteljorg.org/

To be continued…