ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT

By Robert White and Joel S. Dryer © Illinois Historical Art Project

 

“Throughout his life, the ties which bound Hennings to his beloved city [Chicago] were never completely severed, but instead, remained forever sustained and treasured.” It was his wish to be buried where he lies today, in Chicago.[1]

Ernest Martin Hennings was born on February 5, 1886, on a small farm near Penns Grove, New Jersey, along the Delaware River. His parents, Martin and Louis Dunklau Hennings, were married in 1884. Both parents were born in Germany, his father having immigrated to the United States in 1870. Hennings had two sisters, Alice born in 1888 and Mary born in 1893. Three other children were born to his parents; two apparently died in infancy, and a son drowned in a swimming accident.[2] The Hennings family moved around 1889 to Chicago, where Hennings’ father found work as a cement finisher, and there was a strong German speaking community.[3] Hennings showed artistic talent as a child, and family lore tells that his teachers urged his mother to allow him to study art. One afternoon, he and a young friend came upon the Art Institute of Chicago, and as Hennings told it some years later:

“It was rather strange that I chose painting for my profession, for practically none of my family showed any artistic tendencies. It happened that when I was 12 or 13 years old, another lad and myself [sic] wandered into the Art Institute of Chicago and it was during that visit I determined to become an artist. That day I secured a pamphlet that showed me that art could be studied. That had never occurred to me.”[4]

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Hennings enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Saturday juvenile division on October 6, 1900. The following summer, he entered the regular school and studied days, evenings and summers until graduating with honors on June 17, 1904.[5] John Henry Vanderpoel (1857-1911), was Hennings’ principal teacher. Twenty years later, Hennings would donate Indian Head, (listed in the Vandepoel inventory as Examining His Arrows, Taos, donated 1925), to the John H. Vanderpoel Art Association and when asked of the significance of his teacher he wrote:

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“He exercised the greatest influence on me during the impressionable and formative period of my life. I look back with reverence to Mr. Vanderpoel for the interest, help and guidance which he rendered to me when I was just beginning the study of art.”[6]

Somewhere between the summers of 1903 to 1905, Hennings studied outdoor painting in Saugatuck, Michigan with John Christen Johansen (1876-c.1964) who was the first to start a school there.[7] This important exposure to landscape painting in the open air would stay with Hennings as a love of the outdoors throughout his career. Perhaps with a more practical sense in mind, he studied intensively during the next two years with Thomas Wood Stevens (1880-1942), at least one year while on scholarship,[8] taking illustration courses and receiving numerous first, second and third place finishes in classroom competitions.[9] During this period he also continued studio classes in academic life. Such vigorous efforts at studying post graduation were extremely uncommon and indicate Hennings had an intense desire to perfect his craft. Indeed, a review of his student drawings from 1905 show the artist had attained an exemplary degree of proficiency with the costumed human figure, a skill that would bode well for a promising career as an illustrator.[10] He was also an active participant in the Art Students’ League of Chicago and exhibited in three annual shows from 1904 to 1906, winning first illustration prize in 1906.[11]

In 1905 he had been accorded a significant honor when his painting A Quiet Evening (location unknown), was accepted for the Tenth annual exhibition of the Society of Western Artists. The Society’s shows generally traveled to several Midwestern cities and featured only the best artists of Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, etc. However this year it saw only St. Louis and Chicago.[12] Acceptance was likely an influencing factor in his jury selection for the tenth Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists, which opened on January 30, 1906. It would be another ten years before he exhibited at this important annual review of current work by Chicago’s best artists; it is possible the perfectionist side of him wanted to be sure he felt he had mastered his
craft.[13] On June 15, 1906, he was awarded the American Traveling Scholarship for “excellence in drawing, painting, and composition.”[14] Most students would have used the prize funds to study in New York, but Hennings either turned down the prize money or accepted the $125 with the stipulation he could remain in Chicago.[15]

From 1906 until 1912, Hennings devoted himself to commercial art including magazine illustration and interior decorating. In 1908 he completed murals in the museum restaurant at the Art Institute (destroyed),[16] and in 1909 he worked under the direction of Edward Joseph Holslag (1870-1924) on murals in the Florentine Ballroom at the Congress Hotel (destroyed).[17]

Upon re-entering the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1910, he listed his occupation as “Mural painter.”[18] From October 1911 to April 1912, he studied architectural perspective and in March 1912 took a class in color theory with Harry Mills Walcott (1870-1944) and also entered the painting from life class at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in February 1912.[19] It appeared Hennings was well on his way to a career in mural painting and interior decoration. At this time, he had been living at the Tree Studio building, a Mecca for artists, and hotbed of creative activity.[20]

In 1912 Hennings entered the American Prix de Rome competition. The competition was open to the entire country and offered the prize of a three year scholarship. The competitors were given a “rigorous examination,” in drawing, painting, artistic anatomy and perspective. Only ten artists in the category of painting were chosen as finalists, Hennings among them. Those ten were then whittled to three through further examination which culminated in the final examination calling for the painting of a finished piece. Hennings produced his allegorical Morning (Museum of New Mexico), and finished a “close” second place to another former Art Institute student, Eugene Savage (1883-c.1978).[21]

Despite not having the scholarship in hand, he was determined to study abroad. Hennings applied for a passport in Chicago on November 25, 1912, stating he would return from abroad within two years. The clerk recorded that he was twenty-six years old, five feet, eleven and one-half inches tall, green eyes, auburn hair, prominent nose and ordinary mouth.[22] Hennings took a train to New York and then boarded the S. S. George Washington sailing for Bremen Germany on November 30, 1912. Upon arrival in Bremen, Hennings took the train to Munich with the intention of studying at the Royal Academy. His teachers there were Walter Thor, Angelo Jank, and Franz von Stück.[23] Hennings had particularly wanted to study with von Stück and had to persist after the professors declinations to enroll him until presenting him with examples of his work, after which the professor deemed Hennings proficient enough to work with him.[24] In describing the work at the academy Hennings wrote:

“The academy, quite different from our schools, is restricted to men under 30 years of age… We work, as a rule, from 8 to 12 mornings and from 2 to 4 the first three afternoons of the week. The models are posed in varied and unusual lightings, with views to pictorial arrangement, which we have to consider in our work. All other studies are by lectures, and they have a thoro [sic] and comprehensive schedule, as well as a circulating library. We have free hospital privileges, accident insurance and free admission to most exhibitions. Most advanced students are furnished with private studios and model expenses and are called ‘componier’ (composition) students. This is something we should have in Chicago.”[25]

Hennings went on to say there was a regular flow of Americans to Munich and that Eugene Savage, who bested him the Prix de Rome competition, had recently arrived. Because Hennings did not speak German well, he relied upon another Chicago artist Louis Frederick Grell (1887-1960) to interpret for him until he could get along by himself.[26] Hennings joined the American Club of Artists [his wording] in Munich. In a letter to Joseph Pierre Birren (1864-1933) in Chicago, who was trying to strengthen the newly formed Art Institute of Chicago Alumni Association, Hennings stated that twelve former Institute students had met to organize a branch of the association in Munich. He also spoke of how their own artist club in Munich was gaining in stature with the taking of new quarters, regular exhibitions and social events.[27] Two other artists in the club, who with Hennings were members of the Palette and Chisel Club back home, included future Taos, New Mexico artists Walter Ufer (1876-1936) and William Victor Higgins (1884-1949). Ufer and Hennings stayed in contact even after Ufer returned to Chicago. Hennings corresponded with him occasionally and in one letter Hennings wrote of a new mustache, something which would remain part of his appearance for the remainder of his life.[28]

During the summer of 1914, Hennings set out on a museum tour of seventeen cities. While in Frankfort during the first week of August, World War I became a certainty and he was advised to return to Munich before mobilization made travel difficult.[29] Hennings remained in Munich until the situation became too difficult. He applied to the American legation in Bern, Switzerland for an emergency passport on July 26, 1915. That same day he was issued a six week passport for travel in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland for the purpose of returning home. He most likely sailed for the United States from Rotterdam in the Netherlands.[30]

Upon his return, Hennings re-activated his art activities almost immediately and immersed himself in numerous projects and exhibitions. The flourish he would have felt upon his return from European studies must have been strong. In 1916 he won the Gold Medal of the Palette and Chisel Club for his work in their annual exhibition.[31] The medal, instituted in 1913 and first won by Victor Higgins, was awarded for outstanding work in the show, rather than to one particular painting. That same year he began work on murals entitled The Ascension of Christ, at the Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Topeka, Kansas, which were installed in 1916.[32] As the twentieth annual exhibition of Chicago artists opened in February 1916 at the Art Institute, Hennings re-emerged with five canvases and garnered the fifty dollar Englewood Woman’s Club Prize awarded annually for a group of paintings. Critic Anne Ellis said his The Surprise (location unknown), “is one of the few sensational pictures at this year’s exhibition.”[33] Critic Dr. Albrecht Montgelas said that “Walter Ufer, E. Martin Hennings, both Munich trained, and Allen L. Swisher… are the three most promising representatives of young Chicago.”[34] He later commented on the obvious influence of Stück upon a highly talented pupil and fortold, “…from what he has shown in the present exhibition Chicago has the right to expect big things from him.”[35]

As the exhibit at the Art Institute was closing, Hennings was preparing for a one-man exhibition at the Palette and Chisel Club’s quarters in the Athenaeum Building beginning in April. Along with Edgar Payne (1882-1947) and sculptor Maximilian Hoffman (1888-1922), each artist was accorded a gallery. As evidenced by his showing of portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Judson Titsworth, Hennings was earning money painting likenesses of patrons. While critic Lena M. McCauley  noted again his “weird conceptions” were reminiscent of Stück’s influence, she felt the canvases over all were “bright with promise” and “well painted,” noting Hennings’ work was “well worth a visit.”[36] As soon as the show closed at the end of April, the annual exhibit of the Palette and Chisel Club opened at the Art Institute and ever the champion, Dr. Montgelas stated, “That he is the best talent among the younger members and among Chicago artists in general is once more demonstrated by E. Martin Hennings.”[37] His painting The Sister (location unknown), was awarded honorable mention in the show as was a work by Victor Higgins.[38] His success no doubt led to the first of several acquisitions by the City of Chicago as they purchased his painting Pensive.[39]

Later in the summer of 1916 he completed four window panels representing the seasons for the Calkins Studios. Calkins was an interior decorating and decorative designing firm in Chicago. “Mr. Hennings has designed graceful compositions fitting to the spirit of the subject, with attractive models in character.”[40] While 1916 was a very busy year for the artist, it has been inferred in other texts this was the year Hennings began teaching at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, where he had studied earlier. However, a review of almost one thousand student records from the Academy cannot confirm him as a teacher and it is only known for certain he was a teacher there a few years later.[41] The year closed with Hennings’ work accepted for the annual winter exhibit at the National Academy of Design in New York, promising a much broader audience for his works.

In the 1917 annual exhibition by Chicago artists, Hennings had six paintings accepted. One of these works, The Bridge (private collection), was reminiscent of Alson Skinner Clark (1876-1949) whose Coffee House had entered the permanent collection of the Art Institute. Both paintings showed the Adams Street Bridge in Chicago. Concurrently his work was accepted at the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later at the St. Louis Art Museum. He had also contributed war poster illustrations for the Red Cross of Chicago that year. And, the city of Chicago made another purchase of his work adding The Pool, to their collection.[42] By now, it was impossible not to notice his success in Chicago.

A few years earlier, Chicago Mayor Carter H. Harrison had formed a syndicate that first sponsored Walter Ufer to paint the Indians of Taos, New Mexico, for three years and followed that with a one year sponsorship of Victor Higgins. Harrison had become interested in the Pueblo Indians from his many visits to and from his winter home in California; on each trip he would stop in New Mexico as he found the region fascinating. He suggested that the “Indian country” would make an appropriate and interesting theme for painting and the syndicate guaranteed to purchase eight Ufer paintings, 25”x30” each, paying for them in advance.[43] Among the members of the syndicate, comprised mostly of German-American businessmen, were the mayor’s brother William Preston Harrison, A. G. Wackenreuther, Oscar F. Mayer, John E. Owens, Emil Demme, Charles H. Hermann, Wentworth G. Field, Murray Keller and William H. Klauer of Dubuque and Joseph Winter of Negaunee, Michigan.[44] Harrison described the syndicate and its history in a letter to the press:

“Some years ago I got up a small syndicate which sent Alfred Jansson [Chicago painter, 1863-1931] on two sketching trips into the north woods… Later on we sent Walter Ufer on three trips to the Indian country… We sent Victor Higgins on his first trip West. I had stopped off many times in the Indian country, having many friends there, and was able to give Ufer and Higgins helpful letters. It has been our plan to commission the artist to paint a certain number of canvases and to pay him for them in advance, in that way making it financially possible for him to make an extended trip… This year we have sent Martin Hennings west; he will start in at the Grand Canyon, stop off at Laguna, Santa Fe, San Juan and wind up his trip at Taos. He has commissions for ten canvases for us. The nice part of the scheme is that we get good canvases at reasonable prices and the artists have their trips financed for them.”[45]

Harrison and his group had prescience as one critic stated:

“These men worked their good without advertising themselves. How many of the visitors to our local exhibitions realize that the man whose work they are admiring owes the opportunity for creating it to the generosity and vision of Mr. Harrison and his associates? Last season two of the proteges of the syndicate carried away the first and second prizes at the Art Institute “American” and “Chicago” shows. This Summer a young artist whose work had attracted considerable attention in local exhibits was sent to the Southwest by the syndicate…”[46]

It was a logical step for Harrison to make a similar arrangement with Hennings, the third of three Munich trained, prominent Palette and Chisel Club men.[47] As Ufer and Higgins had begun to price their canvases above what Harrison deemed a bargain, he threw his support to Hennings and sponsored his first trip to New Mexico during the summer 1917.[48] Hennings later stated in a  matter of fact fashion: “In 1917, Carter Harrison approached me with a guarantee of some purchases which permitted me to paint for a year in Taos.”[49] Harrison paved the way by writing two letters of introduction, one to Paul A. F. Walter, director of the Museum of New Mexico and the other to Ufer. To Mr. Walter he wrote:

“This will be presented to you by Mr. Martin Hennings, one of the most talented of the younger group of Chicago artists, looking up suitable motives for his brush. I have suggested to him that he should try to have an exhibition of some of his works in Santa Fe before he returns home. Mr. Hennings’ work has been exhibited in many of the recent important national shows. Any assistance you may give him will be appreciated.”[50]

The letter to Ufer must have been received with some mixed emotions as here was Harrison giving his patronage to another artist whom Ufer might have considered competitive, had it not been for their friendship established earlier in Chicago.[51] In the initial letter to Ufer, Harrison refers to his works and those of Higgins as “beyond my reach” in cost.[52]

As Harrison suggested in his letter to the Post, Hennings went by train to New Mexico making stops in Laguna, Santa Fe and arriving in Taos in time for the San Geronimo dances on September 30.[53] San Geronimo day marks the end of the summer. San Geronimo was a Christian Saint who oversees the harvest festival of the Indians. The day is filled with bright clothing, foot races, festivals and much general celebration.[54]

In 1917 Taos, horses were much more plentiful than automobiles. All the streets were dirt, there was little or no electricity and no mail delivery; about as remote as possible. The Spaniards had begun settling the valley in the sixteenth century. Their descendants kept much of the culture and architecture alive through over three hundred years. The Pueblo Indians had been in Taos for over five hundred years and their customs remained unmoved by “modern” man. Combine these cultures with broad mountain plains, native flora and trees, sweeping towering vistas and bright light, and the makings for an artist’s paradise were close to perfect.

There was already a small colony of Chicago artists in Taos that summer which included Higgins and Ufer as well as Art Institute professor Ethel Louise Coe (1878-1938), Edgar Spier Cameron (1862-1944), Augustin G. Pall (1883-?), Harriet Blackstone (1864-1939) and Grace Ravlin (1873-1956).[55]

Hennings painted a number of canvases during his first visit, three of which were shown in the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe on November 24, 1917. Probably wishing to escape a harsh winter, he left for Chicago on December 13. He had apparently enamoured himself to the locals as the Taos Valley News expressed the wish that “the time will be short until he is again in our midst.”[56]

Once back in Chicago, Hennings again took up portrait work to supplement his income. He was recognized as one of the most important portrait painters in the city when the venerable Carson Pirie Scott & Company Gallery hosted an Exhibition by Chicago Portrait Painters, including only the thirteen finest in the city. Others included in this exhibition were Oliver Dennett Grover (1860-1927), Anna Lee Stacey (1865-1943), Pauline Palmer (1867-1938) and Arvid Frederick Nyholm (1866-1927).

“The list of exhibitors was a very choice one, embracing only the best among Chicago portrait painters… E. Martin Hennings does the dark tonal portrait to perfection with a quality about it that presages genius.”[57]

In 1918 his work was again seen at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and in Chicago with the recently formed Independent Society of Artists, the Artists’ Guild of Chicago, both the Chicago and Vicinity and American (his Stringing the Bow, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was illustrated in the local press)[58] annual exhibits of the Art Institute and an exhibition of  Illinois artists by the Peoria Society of Allied Arts. His work also was shown again in New Mexico at the museum. The following year held more portrait work. His portrait of Kenneth M. Bradley, president of the Bush conservatory (Bush Conservatory Building as of 1920),[59] was featured in the news and his entry in the Chicago and Vicinity show at the Art Institute caused favorable comment again from Ms. Stuart:

“The 'Portrait of a Young Lady,' by E. Martin Hennings, is notably well painted and though the colour scheme is daring it has been so cleverly carried out as to please the eye at once with its balance of brilliant hues against darker ones. The texture of the clinging silken blouse of vivid yellow and the modeling of shoulders and arm beneath its tissues are technical feats which do credit to his training.”[60]

Hennings had been a juror for the Chicago and Vicinity show; a duty he performed the following two years as well.[61] During the summer of 1919, family lore has it that Hennings ventured to Gloucester, Massachusetts, a favorite place for artists from the Eastern seaboard as well as Chicago. Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930) had done much to create interest in the area when he was a visiting professor at the School of the Art Institute in 1917.[62] It was 1919, that Hennings:

“took stock of myself and realized my salvation was to free myself of any commercial thought and for at least three years to paint exclusively for my own development.”[63]

It was this “taking stock” that would lead Hennings back to Taos. In addition to his continued portrait work,[64] Hennings must have also been busy with illustrations for commercial advertising houses. We know for a fact he was affiliated with Chicago’s Burleigh Withers Company at least by 1920 as his work was shown in the Art Institute Society of Art Directors commercial art exhibition that year.[65] Another means of earning an income came from the sale of what was known as “thumb-box” paintings; small in size and reasonably priced, they afforded both the artist and the collector an advantageous sale. The Chicago Society of Artists arranged an exhibit for the local Hamilton Club, where Hennings was likely to sell a few works and canvas for new portrait commissions.[66] He also earned an income by teaching at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts during the 1920-1921 season.[67] In 1920 he had two works exhibited at the Carnegie International including Grandmother (location unknown), most likely the same work that had been exhibited at the National Academy four years earlier by the same title, and The Nun, which was probably the same painting entitled The Sister, previously illustrated in the newspaper from his 1916 show at the Palette and Chisel club.[68]

Hennings finally decided to revisit Taos, four years after he had first seen the enchanted area. Something about the place must have remained in his heart as he had ample opportunity to travel there since his first foray in 1917. Perhaps he was determined to build a savings account and saw his time in Chicago, busy with portraits and commercial advertising, as a period with one purpose in mind. He arrived via train in the picturesque village at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on March 25, 1921, and remained throughout the summer and autumn before returning to Chicago, probably in time for the opening of the American annual at the Art Institute in early November where two of his works were on display.[69] In December 1921, his work was accepted at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Eighth annual Oil Paintings by Contemporary American Artists. The show actually occurred on a bi-annual basis; Hennings would show there again on five other occasions.[70]

With abundant material from his long sojourn in Taos, Hennings began to show the work of his new painting grounds and achieved instant acclaim. Five of his paintings were accepted at the 1922 Chicago and Vicinity exhibition. Beneath Clouded Skies was illustrated in the catalogue and was awarded the Clyde M. Carr Landscape Prize.[71] Immediately following this success was the important $500 award and purchase prize of the Fine Arts Building and Chapin estate for the very same painting, which stipulated it be given to the Public School Art Society for placement in a Chicago school.[72] This was a “public” award and Hennings was in attendance as guest of honor when the Public School Art Society gave their luncheon, replete with speaker Walter Sargent of the University of Chicago.[73] From the exhibition he also sold Taos Indians Homeward Bound (location unknown), to the Englewood Woman’s club who had one of the finest collections of paintings in Chicago.[74] In summary, his return to Taos proved propitious and certainly the numerous accolades had to encourage him to return to New Mexico again, where not only the land, but his brush, seemed charmed.

Marshall Field and Company on State Street was an elegant twelve story department store featuring every fine item one might want for the home. Their picture galleries were notably successful and American artists were regularly accorded one-man exhibitions. Field’s became Hennings’ first dealer in Chicago and in May 1922, shortly after the close of the Chicago and Vicinity exhibition, he held a solo show in their galleries. His Dried Stalks (location unknown), was illustrated in the local press with a caption that read in part, “The honors won by his paintings at the big exhibitions of the year have established the artist in the first rank of contemporary Americans.”[75] Critic Lena M. McCauley on noting other painter’s works from Taos said:

“…it is gratifying to meet a new group [of paintings] which has discoveries of its own. Mr. Hennings invests the landscapes with glamour of the imagination. He perceives the fine contrasts of color, the masses of hills set off by blossoming shrubs and the strange vegetation of the arid lands.”[76] “Martin Henning’s paintings of the Taos country at the picture gallery of Marshall Field & Co are creating a sensation. Mr. Hennings has conquered in this his adventures at Taos.”[77]

His work was exhibited that year at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Museum) in Buffalo and again at the annual of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before he left for Taos, arriving in the first week in July. As part of the festive activities on San Geronimo Day, September 30, Hennings and the other artists opened their studios to the public.[78] A month later Hennings accompanied Leon Gaspard (1882-1964), Higgins, Bert Greer Phillips (1868-1956) and others on a painting trip in the mountains east of Taos.[79] By the time he returned to Chicago in the fall, Hennings had created a whole new group of canvases ready for exhibition. He continued to gain broad exposure for his work exhibiting again in at the National Academy of Design and Corcoran Gallery.

The spring of 1923 saw another exhibit at the National Academy of Design where his Through the Greasewood (location unknown), was illustrated in the catalogue.[80] With the prior success of his one-man exhibition at Marshall Field & Company, another show opened there in April 1923. Critic Lena McCauley noted he was obviously enjoying the Taos countryside and again made note of his unique method of laying on masses of contrasting color to achieve the “dramatic and beautiful” and how he used his brush boldly, and perceived his surroundings “as no previous painter had conceived it for his canvases.” This a fairly strong statement given the number of highly respected artists then working in Taos.[81] One of the twenty-five paintings in the show included Patriarchs of the Canyon, which had been loaned by the City of Chicago and was their third purchase of his work.[82] It had also been shown earlier in the annual Chicago and Vicinity exhibit at the Art Institute. Carter H. Harrison’s wife, Edith Ogden Harrison, offered perhaps the best contemporary narrative of Hennings and his work at Field’s gallery:

“With his strong feeling for the decorative, with his keen sense and love of the contrast between the deep blue of the skies, or of the cloud-shadowed mountains and of the foreground bathed in a flood of golden sunshine, Mr. Hennings has painted his bit of the great west in a most individual manner. This exhibition represents in full measure the last season’s work in which his fondness for the brilliant autumn coloring of aspen and cottonwood form perhaps the outstanding note… Mr. Hennings may be depended on to climb high on the heights of art.”[83]

McCauley repeated her comments on his original methods when his one-man summer exhibition opened at the Art Institute in July. Five other Chicago artists were exhibiting in separate galleries during the same time period.[84] Before the opening of his Art Institute show, Hennings had already returned to Taos in June, but he stayed very fresh in the minds of the art interested public. Critic Inez Cunningham lauded his works and other Taos works as Spanish rather than English or Continental influenced, saying the Latins were “unself-conscious, unafraid of truth and laughter.” That his works were so beautiful and natural and he seemed part of the landscape she thought made them as “graceful as a bird’s flight.”[85] Then critic Eleanor Jewett took her turn to praise his work, and In New Mexico (location unknown), was illustrated with her article. She retold a story of how upon his return from Germany his works submitted for the Chicago and Vicinity exhibit were so highly thought of that he was allowed to choose which of his works to show. This to Jewett was an “unusual privilege of great honor,” something which portended things to come.

“The west has done great things for him, and he is now repaying in kind. This exhibit at the institute is one of the best one-man shows the museum has had in a long time. Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins will have to look to their laurels. Another young Lochinvar, art for his bride, is come out of the west... A sure touch, a confidence in color, a harmony in composition, a sincerity in representation, mark every canvas. ‘The Drinking Place,’ is beyond words beautiful.”[86]

Earlier in the spring, his work was exhibited in shows sponsored by the Chicago Society of Artists and traveled to various cities. However, when the Modern artists took control of the Society, a large battle loomed and Hennings was quick to join with the newly formed Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors that included not only Chicago’s most noted artists, but those who practiced art more based upon realism.[87]

In Taos, Hennings was caught in the middle of another political battle between opposing factions, some might consider modern versus traditional, of the Taos Society of Artists and it prevented him from being elected to membership that year. Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960) had always pushed for and increased membership and when he and Ufer and Higgins tried to formally expand the Taos group, they were opposed by the other members. When the annual meeting was held in July, the opposing groups could not come to terms with the result that nobody was elected to membership that year.[88] The Taos Society of artists had brought prestige to its members through joint exhibitions which as a group, held greater appeal to many venues across the  country. As a by-product of this added exposure, the members were more successful in selling their works. It was one of very few missed opportunities for Hennings during his career and short lived as the next season he was elected to membership.[89]

During the 1923 summer in Taos, Hennings met two elderly twin brothers, Jake and George Baumgartner, riding through town on a mule wagon. He hired the brothers to pose for a few weeks resulting in several important paintings; the most notable work entitled The Twins (Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art). The painting was shown at the Fiesta Exhibition at the Museum of New Mexico in September then shipped to Chicago for the American annual at the Art Institute. No doubt Hennings arrived in Chicago in time for the opening.[90] Critic Eleanor Jewett immediately announced the painting as “another step forward in his progress as one of our leading painters,” and that it had been awarded the “Martin B. Cahn prize of $100 for the best oil painting by a Chicago artist.”[91] The prize had been awarded annually since 1900 and was always considered a great honor bestowed among Chicago artists. His picture was illustrated in the press shortly after the opening and not only the local public, but the national audience, became aware of his prize winning piece.[92] The following year the painting was invited to both the annual exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Carnegie International.

Hennings’ exposure widened even farther when his painting Passing By (Houston Museum of Fine Art), was shown at the International Exhibition of Modern Paintings in Venice, Italy, and Through the Greasewood at a similar exhibition in Rome.[93] Works by fellow Taos artists Victor Higgins and Walter Ufer were also included. The extent of this broad exposure even included the popular and widely syndicated Chicago Tribune cartoon, “Gasoline Alley,” where Hennings and Gustave Baumann were featured in one strip. It appears as though, perhaps it is Carter Harrsion, who is having a discussion with a local, about “whatever happened to…” and “do you know” various people.[94] Hennings had also widened his medium by 1924 to include lithography and etching. Between 1924 and 1925 he completed a series of eight lithographs and somewhere around the same time or slightly earlier four etching plates. The lithographs were printed at Jahn and Ollier Lithographic Company in Chicago where his brother-in-law was art director, but the etchings were never printed, for reasons unknown.[95]

During 1924 it is somewhat difficult to track Hennings’ movements. His “return” to Chicago was announced in April, which would ordinarily have been about the time he would leave for Taos. A brief notice stated, “The artist is in the city for a prolonged stay and was at the recent dinner of the Chicago Painters and Sculptors’ society.”[96] Of added confusion during this year is a supposed one-man exhibition at Marshall Field’s. Several texts written in the past few years mention this is where and when the artist met his future wife, however, this show never existed.[97] A thorough review of Field’s exhibition schedule for 1924 from the Chicago Evening Post shows no Hennings show. Furthermore, there is no newspaper criticism of a show in the same paper nor in the Chicago Tribune. Given his two previous successful shows at Field’s in 1922 and 1923, there would certainly have been a good deal of coverage for a 1924 show. Add to this is the statement by Lena M. McCauley in the Chicago Evening Post, April 15, 1924: “Mr. Hennings will not hold a one-man show here this year,”[98] and the proof is quite certain. While it is possible a painting or two of his was hanging at Field’s for sale in 1924, it would be unlikely one of them would have been In New Mexico, the painting mentioned as having brought Mr. and Mrs. Hennings together, as it was owned by Carter Harrison and not for sale.

More likely Hennings met Helen Ott in 1923, while she was working at Field’s, and saw her again on his return in 1924. Given that he was up for membership again in the Taos Society of Artists, it stands to reason he was back in Taos around the time of their annual meeting on July twelfth, and we know for a fact the two were corresponding by the end of the summer of 1924.[99] In November 1924, he and Chicago artist Irving (Kraut) Manoir (1891-1982) took a two week driving trip from Taos circling through New Mexico and Texas with a stop in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico and then back to Taos. This trip gave him a chance to compare scenery from which he concluded Taos was really the best place and no other area compared, even Mexico, which he said was filled with the beauty of the Old Mission, adobe houses and markets as well as the natives and added it was “one of the most interesting places I have ever visited, but not conducive to work.”[100]