Rudolph Weisenborn (1881-1974) Part 2

“Weisenborn, who believes in being tolerant until he almost bursts, yelled and swore at them and called them a bunch of numskulls. They were all insulted and wanted to resign, but he did instead.”[175]

The acrimony was evidently short-lived because many No-Jury artists followed Weisenborn into a new group, Neo-Arlimusc.[176]

Neo-Arlimusc was Weisenborn’s incarnation. The name was meant to indicate an interest in [ar]t, [li]terature, [mu]sic and [sc]ience, preceded by Neo for new.[177] Weisenborn hoped through Neo-Arlimusc to unite artists, writers, musicians and scientists into an intellectual community. Weisenborn’s abstract painting, Construction, then recently completed, was announced as the group’s “official emblem.”[178] The group was organized late in 1926[179] and had its first meeting Wednesday, January 12, 1927, in Weisenborn’s studio at 1501 North La Salle Street.[180] Assisting Weisenborn were Sarah Dubow, secretary and Ramon Shiva, treasurer.[181] By October, it was reported there were forty members,[182] paying dues of $15.00 per year.[183]

Neo-Arlimusc presented lectures and discussions and organized several group and one-person exhibitions; there were also special events, the earliest being the “Artists Mardi Gras, a Night with Artists Models, January 28, 1927, at Merry Gardens.” Weisenborn himself designed the poster announcing the event, featuring a dancer, adroitly executing a Charleston step, and clad in a dress with a printed design that could have been based on one of his abstract paintings.[184] Most of the exhibitions were held in Weisenborn’s studio, which was remodeled for that purpose;[185] no commission was charged for any works sold.[186]

The response to the Neo-Arlimusc spring exhibition held in 1927 was not encouraging; Samuel Putnam (1892-1950), a friend of Weisenborn’s and an admirer of his work and one who had welcomed the formation of Neo-Arlimusc, nevertheless found the exhibition “too tame.”[187] Neo-Arlimusc opened a “between-seasons” exhibition June 18, 1927, with work by Weisenborn and other member artists, including Helmut N. von Erffa,[188] who later spoke before the group, as noted below. The opening included a lecture by Llewellyn Jones, “Some Recent Books.”[189] The Neo-Arlimusc summer exhibition in 1927 was a showing by Weisenborn of a number of his portraits of some of the very people he was hoping would be part of the Neo-Arlimusc community and make it thrive, and the exhibition can thus be seen as part of his organizing activity, an attempt to forge a sense of community. Examples of portraits shown in that exhibition were published in the Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World. Included were Llewellyn Jones (1884‑1961), editor of the Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, Ruth Baron and Max Haleff.[190]

The autumn exhibition opened October 15, 1927, on the general theme of Chicago. R.A. Lennon reported that: “The exhibition…is provocative, but it is not condemnatory. It runs an eventful course from the sylvan solitudes of the forest preserve to the gory murk of the slaughterhouse…” He went on to note that “The pick of the No Jury society seem to be represented…” He also observed: “Of the more memorable single exhibits, Mr. Weisenborn’s large construction of swirling planes and curves in flaming colors express one aspect of Chicago…”[191] The opening night of the “Chicago” exhibition demonstrated that the interests of Neo-Arlimusc extended beyond the Windy City. The opening was celebrated by a panel chaired by Frank Sohn, president of the Art Directors Club; the panel included Barry Byrne, a Chicago architect, and “H.N. Erffa of Weimar, Germany.”[192] The latter, Helmut N. von Erffa, had studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar, and was the first person connected with that school to settle in Chicago, where he lived from March, 1927, to September, 1929.[193] The former, Byrne, had paid a visit to the Bauhaus in 1924,[194] making him one of the first Americans to visit that school. Other autumn events included a November 5 lecture by Dr. Louis Wirth, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, who spoke on “Science and Some of Its False Prophets,”[195] and a November 12 lecture by Dr. Hyman Cohen, author of The Tents of Jacob, who spoke on “Art Consciousness, or the Day of Creation.”[196]

The most ambitious public event was a midnight fund-raiser called “Alley Oop Chicago,” a reference to the alley location of Neo-Arlimusc behind 1501 North La Salle Street, and to a popular newspaper comic strip, Alley Oop, about dinosaurs and cavemen. The event was held in the Playhouse in the Fine Arts Building at 410 South Michigan Avenue, and featured musicians, including John Alden Carpenter, composer, and Theodore Katz, violinist; dancers, including Ruth Page; and writers, including Bulliet, Llewellyn Jones and Harriet Monroe.[197] Surely the most intriguing event was a showing of what seems to be Weisenborn’s only film; as one newspaper noted: “A modernistic motion-picture impression of Chicago, made by Rudolph Weisenborn, for the Cinema club, will be shown on the screen.”[198]

But Neo-Arlimusc is best known for its special showing of “Exhibition of Chicago Moderns,” set up early in 1928 for the visiting art historian and critic, Julius Meier-Graefe (1867-1935), in its gallery in Weisenborn’s studio. The exhibition was carefully assembled by Weisenborn from work done by Chicago artists in modern styles (going back to the period of the Armory Show),[199] however critic Bulliet reported that Meier-Graefe had “failed to detect anything significant” in it.[200]

What appear to be Neo-Arlimusc’s final two events took place in March 1928. A lecture on March 17 was given by Douglas C. McMurtrie, a modernist designer of typography who was also a leading historian of printing; he spoke on “Modernism in Typography.”[201] The last exhibition, drawings and paintings by Seymour DeKoven, opened March 24, 1928; Maxwell Bodenheim spoke at the opening on “What Is Wrong with the American Novel.”[202] Only the Neo-Arlimusc life sketch classes continued, at least into April.[203] Shortly after that, Weisenborn closed his La Salle Street studio and moved further north to Irving Park Road. About a dozen years later, Fritzi Weisenborn fondly recalled Neo-Arlimusc in the magazine section of the Chicago Sunday Times:

“Up an alley on La Salle was a club…called Neo Arlimusc. It was for the furtherance of new art, literature, music and science. Llewelyn [sic] Jones, book editor of the Chicago Post, would talk on books, Maxwell Bodenheim would recite his poetry, Leon Benditsky and Vitali Schnee and a group of musicians would play Ravel and Schoenberg. Louis Wirth would discuss sociology, Dr. Mandel Sherman, psychiatry, [John] Landesco, crime and the underworld. Even the gangsters came to listen and see the art exhibits… After the crowd would leave, Carl Sandburg would bring out his guitar and sing American songs, from “Frankie and Johnny” to the “Boll Weevil.” Ben Hecht and Maxwell Bodenheim would drop around to plan for the next issue of the Literary Times.”[204]

Weisenborn had continued to serve occasionally as a juror.[205] He served on a “jury of selection,” along with Clara MacGowan (1895-1983) of Northwestern University, Dr. Edward F. Rothchild and Ben I. Morris, for the first annual exhibition by Jewish artists of Chicago at the Covenant Club in 1928.[206]

Also in 1928, another attempt was made to liberalize the Art Institute’s annual exhibition of American painting, by electing a jury that was a mix of modernists and conservatives, but with modernists in the majority.[207] Weisenborn’s previous showings at the Art Institute had been in the Chicago and vicinity and in the watercolor exhibitions; now, for the first time, he was in the more prestigious American paintings exhibition. Moreover, he was “Awarded Honorable Mention for an architectural subject” for his uncompromising, non-objective Chicago (1924),[208] a work Weisenborn noted “was submitted several times before to shows at the Art Institute but was always rejected.”[209] Weisenborn had once been quoted about the painting for a Chicago newspaper:

“I assure you this was not a birdseye view of Chicago. It was my personal reaction to this modern dynamic metropolis. It was the only way I could have expressed my emotions about Chicago. And I assure you, they were very different from the vast forces I encountered out West.”[210]

The painting known as The Chicagoan, of 1926 (72 by 47.5 inches; owned by the Weisenborn family),[211] marks a turning point in Weisenborn’s figurative work and in the way he related figures to the surrounding environment. It is instructive to compare The Chicagoan with a related drawing, Artist Approaching the Gallery of Living Artists, undated but surely made at about the same time, that is, while Weisenborn was still hoping to establish “a gallery of living artists.”[212] Absent from both is the mirror-like realism of the 1924 Darrow portrait, but also absent is the non-objective quality of Chicago, painted during the same year. In the latter work Weisenborn depicts himself as an artist (identifiable from his trademark ten-gallon hat), in the former approaching an art gallery with paintings under his arm, in the latter bringing the armful of paintings into a Chicago cityscape. In both works the cityscape includes recognizable scenes and abstract forms suggesting the city, but in The Chicagoan the forms have become both less precise and bolder. And in both works the space is configured from disparate elements. Weisenborn once described The Chicagoan:

“My conception was of a Life sized figure moving through the skyscrapers and the mechanized dinamics [sic] of our Chicago Loop, plus the river, plus its bridges, plus the symphonies of our smoke-throbbing blues…This painting was an integration of elements interrelated to a conflict punch. There was a conscious lack of representational material.”[213]

The Chicagoan was chosen for the 1929 annual American exhibition at the Art Institute, but unlike Chicago (1924) in the previous year’s showing, it did not win a prize.[214]

Blue Tree of 1926,[215] shown earlier at the Randolph Theater, is in a way oddly comparable to Artist Approaching the Gallery of Living Artists and The Chicagoan. A tree dominates the picture in much the same way as the artist does in the other two works, and the balance of the picture is taken up by blue-dominated shapes suggesting sky and landscape, including the bare-mountain landscapes seen in the west.

Weisenborn’s efforts at agitation and organization had eloquent and enthusiastic support from Clarence J. Bulliet (1883-1952), a critic who was a thoughtful, perceptive and sympathetic observer of modern art and who conveyed his enthusiasm for much of what he saw in brilliant, highly readable prose. He also took modern art seriously in mass-circulation publications at a time when many were still convinced that modern art was some kind of hoax or the work of “wild men,” or at least the work of innocent artists who had been duped. Bulliet served as “Director” (there was a separate “Editor”) of the Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, a weekly Tuesday newspaper supplement published from 1924 to 1931. From time to time, Bulliet’s coverage of modern art was supplemented by articles by Samuel Putnam, who was also a translator of French literature, and John Grierson (1898 - 1972), who, as noted above, was also a filmmaker; all three wrote sympathetically about Weisenborn’s work. The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World was available to subscribers who were not also subscribers to its sponsoring newspaper, and it was the largest art publication in the United States at the time, with more pages than, e.g., Art News (then also a weekly). When the Post was sold to the Chicago Daily News in September 1932, Bulliet then became a critic for that newspaper.[216]

Bulliet had considered Weisenborn to be “the generalissimo of Chicago radicals,” until he retired from “active battle for ‘the cause’”[217] and “…laid aside the diabolic robes of priest of the Black Mass in Chicago art circles.”[218] As a result, Bulliet noted, Weisenborn had begun to “let his emotions have fuller sway in paint.”[219] At Weisenborn’s one-person exhibition that opened March 4, 1930, at the Chester Johnson Galleries in Chicago, Bulliet observed “greater ease and flexibility in handling his brushes,” and added: “Heretofore the intellect guided every stroke—in the show at Johnson’s there is evidence that his emotions have broken out of their iron restraints.” The review was illustrated by Cliffa, 1928 (sold at auction by the Don Treadway Gallery, Cincinnati and Chicago, November 23, 1997, item 590), a seated nude next to a kitchen table with vegetables in inverse sizes: a green pepper of “normal” size is dwarfed by a large purple onion, but both are dominated by a gigantic head of garlic.[220] Interior was also illustrated, a week later.[221]

The Chester Johnson Galleries had developed into an especially prestigious place to show; generally, only out-of-town artists with established reputations were shown. But Weisenborn’s triumph was marred by unusually vituperative comments by Eleanor Jewett in the Chicago Tribune. Of course, if one takes the long view, this was somewhat ironic, because, as detailed below, Jewett was to become a strong supporter of Weisenborn’s work. “It is one of the most revolting shows that has been offered in Chicago for some time,” began Jewett’s Thursday review of Weisenborn’s exhibition at the Chester Johnson Galleries; she added that in his figures, “Instead of flesh, Weisenborn presents us with entrails.”[222]

Bulliet was moved to attack Jewett’s review, and speculated that one of her passages, “A nude female fearfully foreshortened has raw red saucers for breasts,” might have actually, but mistakenly, been a reference to a picture by another artist. A painting by George Josimovich (1894-1986), he thought, might have been shown to Jewett in a gallery storeroom, and taken by her to be a work by Weisenborn.[223] Be that as it may, Cliffa is dominated by a nude female figure that might just as well have provoked Jewett’s wrath.

But Jewett went beyond her review to blast Weisenborn in a more general article appearing the Sunday following her Thursday review, she proclaimed: “…no more brutalized painting could be found than in the show at the Chester Johnson galleries of canvases by Weisenborn,” and she even attacked Weisenborn personally, insisting “…one can conceive that Weisenborn is brutal at soul.” Even more blatantly she wrote, comparing Weisenborn’s work to another painter she disapproved of, Emil Ganso (1895-1941, best known for his erotic works): “…whereas Weisenborn is repulsive, Ganso is only irritating.”[224]

The story does not end there. In December 1930, Weisenborn’s works were shown in the assembly hall of the Chicago Women’s Aid, a Jewish women’s club. Critic Inez Cunningham wrote a long and sympathetic narrative describing a type of well-to-do and open-minded woman who might have purchased something from the Chester Johnson exhibition, but for a critic, “that snake in the garden of Eden,” who condemned the artist. The potential purchaser was swayed by “the power of print.”[225]

Cunningham explained:

“Some time ago Rudolph Weisenbrn was given a show at the Chester Johnson gallery. Weisenborn is a sincere painter; the intellectual structure of his work is sound as a bronze bell; for many years he has labored in his own particular manner, echoing unfalteringly the uphill route, avoiding the morasses of imitation and the swamps of sensationalism. Chester Johnson recognized all this else he would never have given him an exhibition. Johnson’s reputation as a dealer needs no words in Chicago…But along came a critic and used adjectives which splattered mud not only upon Weisenborn but upon his dealer. The potential customers ran out—we are nothing in America if not moral…Lawyers called upon Mr. Weisenborn offering their services free to sue for libel, but Weisenborn is no publicity hound. None the less incalculable harm was done to his artistic reputation among those acquainted with his work and with the man, not to mention the harm done his dealer and the grief his wife felt...”[226]

Cunningham appeared to be personally touched by the gesture made by Woman’s Aid, one she called “poetic vindication,” because: “The purity of Jewish women is famous. The pictures of Mr. Weisenborn hang in their assembly hall for a month. These pictures are no better and no worse artistically than they were when they hung at the Johnson gallery, but their morality is vindicated to the innocent.”[227]

It could be asked, if there were no organizational ties, after 1928, and no group activity other than teaching, why did Weisenborn stay in Chicago? Over the years, two of his closest artist friends left Chicago, and not only that, but they also moved to New Mexico, adjoining Weisenborn’s beloved Colorado. Raymond Jonson (was the first; he moved to Santa Fe in 1924,[228] and to Albuquerque in 1949.[229] Ramon Shiva moved to Santa Fe in c.1939.[230] Weisenborn visited them on several occasions, and much later in his career, spent the summer of 1953 in Santa Fe.[231]

Earlier in 1924 Weisenborn had already become somewhat discouraged by the Chicago art environment. He was quoted at length in an article in a Chicago newspaper, and what emerged was he considered Chicago provincial in matters concerning art, and claimed: “Many great visual artists, American as well as foreign, are appalled at our provincial art condition.” He went on to cite some of those who had left, including his recently departed modernist-artist friend, Stanislaw Szukalski.[232]

Evidently, in spite of the artistic provincialism, Weisenborn nonetheless felt nourished by the Chicago environment. Many of his works, perhaps the majority, depended on the human and physical environment of Chicago, including his sensitive portraits of the city’s intellectuals, and his cityscapes based on the dynamism of Chicago’s buildings and traffic. Also, he was sure to have been impressed with the success Szukalski had in getting his work published in Chicago, particularly in the case of two extensively illustrated monographs, the largest such publications ever of the work of a Chicago artist published in Chicago;[233] he must have harbored a hope for similar success.

Still another reason Weisenborn stayed in Chicago might have been the support he received in the press; Bulliet covered dozens of exhibitions for Chicago newspapers in which Weisenborn showed. In addition Bulliet wrote about Weisenborn on several occasions in Art Digest which, although published in New York, had a predilection for covering art in Chicago, because of the Chicago background of its publishers.[234] But nowhere did Bulliet write any extended criticism of Weisenborn’s body of work or of any of his individual works; moreover, in his 1936 book, The Significant Moderns and Their Pictures, Weisenborn was not included. The only Chicago painter included was the now long since forgotten Salcia Bahnc (1898-after 1959).[235] The unstated message was clear: not many Chicago painters were accomplished enough to move beyond its provincial environment, and Weisenborn was not one of them. Thus, the numerous short notices heaping praise on Weisenborn’s work, such as one of 1941 hailing Weisenborn as one of the few modernists “who achieved anything worthwhile on this side of the Atlantic,”[236] eventually began to ring hollow. But Weisenborn had no way of anticipating that Bulliet’s support would be so attenuated.

Although Bulliet had noted in 1930 Weisenborn’s “…later pictures rap as violently at the heart as at the head,”[237] the painter was still cerebral enough to continue the intellectual momentum built up during his organizing efforts of the 1920s. A lecture at the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, “Abstract Form in Realistic Art,” was given February 19, 1932.[238]

Weisenborn offered a series of seven lectures in his studio on successive Saturday evenings beginning September 26, 1931. The series title was “How I Look at Art,” and the subjects included “Revolution in Art,” “The Bridge between El Greco and Cezanne,” “The Subtlety of Cubism,” “The Complete Expression of Picasso,” and “The Mystery of Space.”[239]

A new direction in Weisenborn’s work was his murals. His first mural was probably the abstraction, Machine Movement, painted in 1933 for the Century of Progress Exposition held in Chicago in 1933 and 1934.[240] This was a decoration for the west interior wall of Pavilion four of the General Exhibits Building.[241] It is important to note that for Weisenborn and his many viewers, Machine Movement was seen in the context of a fair that was an experimental ground for color. Many of the buildings were windowless, with areas of flat wall surfaces; these were painted in color schemes designed by Joseph Urban in 1933 and Shepard Vogelgesang in 1934.[242] Each scheme featured large, unbroken areas of pure color. Moreover, color experiments were made with giant searchlights equipped with color filters; sometimes the searchlights were aimed at the sky, sometimes on fair buildings, and sometimes on jets of steam or on smoke from aerial bombs.[243] Surely no sensitive visitor, artist or layman, went away from the fair without thinking of new possibilities for using color.

With the onset of the Great Depression, Weisenborn became a part of the Federal Art Project.[244] The first of Weisenborn’s federally funded works to be publicly shown appeared at the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago from July 1 through August 8, 1935.[245] Weisenborn showed Worker, a decorative panel.[246] This was to be one of a number of showings of Weisenborn’s work at the Renaissance Society.[247]

Around 1936 or 1937 he had moved his home and studio to 674 Irving Park Road, where he would remain the rest of his career.[248] The studio was in a former restaurant located in the lower level of a large apartment complex. The tile-floored dining room was used by Weisenborn as his own studio, and a divider made it usable also for lectures and as a teaching studio. Adjacent rooms were used by the family for cooking and sleeping.[249]

In 1937, Weisenborn became a member of New York-based American Abstract Artists,[250] organized by intrepid modernists who welcomed as new members increasing numbers of artists who had begun their careers in Europe. However, Weisenborn does not seem to have been very active with the group. It was with his showings at the Katharine Kuh Gallery in Chicago that he was seen for the first time in the context of international modernism. Kuh operated her gallery in the elegant art deco Diana Court Building,[251] from the autumn of 1935 through the spring of 1941.[252] She showed the biggest names in European modernism including Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Moholy-Nagy and Kandinsky, along with a select group of American modernists. Kuh showed Weisenborn in a two-person show with Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977) in April 1937,[253] and in a one-person show in April, 1941,[254] when he exhibited twenty oil and tempera paintings, including Portrait of Herman Spertus,[255] discussed below.

In 1937 Weisenborn began working in the mural program of The Illinois Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (usually simply called “WPA”) Federal Art Project, the successor to the Art Project of the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, directed by artist Increase Robinson. The muralists for the Illinois Art Project were chosen from the painters in the easel division.[256] Weisenborn’s murals for the WPA were all created with oil on canvas (except for Abstraction—Fight Against Soil Erosion, discussed below), rather than the older method of painting on wet plaster. His first commission was for three murals for Crane Technical High School, 2245 Jackson Boulevard, Chicago. Each mural measured five by eight feet; one was called Electricians,[257] another was called Boilermakers, Pipe Fitters, and Architects, and the other was called Steelworkers.[258] They proved to be short-lived. Although they had been “…enthusiastically accepted by…Mrs. Kate Brewster (president of the Chicago Public School Art Society) and others,”[259] one Crane principal accepted them reluctantly and eventually put them on the walls of the refectory. His successor, a man named Roy F. Webster, had them removed. The best explanation he could give, when questioned by Fritzi Weisenborn, was that he just didn’t like them.[260] Although the Crane murals can now be known solely from black-and-white photographs, some idea of their impact can be gauged from accounts of critics. John and Mollie Thwaites wrote:

“They are painted in oil on canvas by an easel painter, but it does not matter. As soon as you look at the three sections in the Crane school you see that they have the geometric, the architectonic base which such art has had from Giotto and Uccello to Orozco and Siqueiros.”[261]

Another set of murals, Satirical Musical Comedy, for the Great Northern Theater, was also created in 1937.[262] At the time the Great Northern was the site of a WPA Federal Theater Project. One mural was eight feet, four- and one-half inches by six feet, eleven inches; the other was four feet ten inches by eleven feet three inches. The Great Northern no longer stands, and the whereabouts of the murals is unknown. The location of one mural, Stock Yards, has not been identified, but a cartoon for it was shown at the Art Institute in 1938.[263]

Weisenborn was nothing if not creative in locating settings for his works. He installed his own exhibition, with the help of some friends,[264] in February 1938, in a former automobile showroom on the ground floor of the art deco 333 North Michigan Avenue Building (Holabird & Root, architects, 1928),[265] located just to the south of the Chicago River. Artist and critic Mitchell Siporin described the view of the gallery from the Michigan Avenue bridge, from which one could “see a large portion of the show.” He went on to point out that Weisenborn was “avowedly experimental in each picture,” while maintaining “his intensely personal idiom,” and proclaimed: “The Weisenborn Retrospective is aesthetically and historically an occasion of prime importance in the Art life of America.”[266] Eighty-seven works were shown, including oils, temperas and drawings, ranging in dates from 1922 through 1937; more than half were borrowed from private collections, mostly in Chicago and its suburbs, but eight were loaned by Grierson, then living in London.[267] Thwaites was one of three speakers who presented a series of lectures. He was British Vice Consul in Chicago, as well as a critic for Parnassus, Magazine of Art, and Axis (London); his lecture, presented on February 28, was called “Realism and Abstraction in the Work of Rudolph Weisenborn.” On February 16, Clara MacGowan, Assistant Professor of Art at Northwestern University, gave a lecture on “Rudolph Weisenborn, His Place in Modern Art.” On February 23, George Frederick Buehr, a membership lecturer at the Art Institute, talked about “How to Enjoy Abstract Painting.”[268]

The only extant school mural by Weisenborn, Contemporary Chicago, was completed in 1939 for the Nettlehorst School, 3252 North Broadway.[269] It measures seven by twenty-three feet, and was restored and stabilized in 1996.[270] Contemporary Chicago is a challenging work. Although its roots can be seen in Cubism and Vorticism, Weisenborn went beyond these “isms” with his innovative colors, bold outlines, sculptural rendering of figures with planar surfaces, and spatial relationships. Moreover, he built up a very thick impasto, not usual in Cubism, and not usual in mural painting. If one wants to use a stylistic term for Contemporary Chicago, “machine age” would not be far from the mark. It seems like a style because similar motifs were developed in architecture and interiors, home appliances, automobiles and railroad trains, and fine arts, especially sculpture and mural painting.[271] There is a biographical element in the picture: it is divided into four segments, and the right-of-center segment shows Weisenborn himself, wearing his ten-gallon hat, on horseback, with a bull and a steer and a corral. Below that is a triangular area suggesting a slice of one of his signature abstract paintings. The right-hand portion shows a worker in an assembly line, with smokestacks in the background.[272] The left-hand portion is the smallest, and shows an elegantly dressed woman, whose fashionable blue shoes contrast with the heavy work shoes of the assembly-line worker. The left-of-center section shows a sailboat in Lake Michigan, with the skyscrapers of the Loop nearby, and a pair of small airplanes playfully maneuvering overhead. As an ardent fan of Western films,[273] and the father of two school-age sons, Weisenborn was aware that a favorite pastime for school children was going to see Western movies. The no-longer-young artist had something to share with his youthful viewers.

Sometimes the Illinois Art Project artists received commissions from sponsors in other states. Weisenborn was commissioned to do a three-dimensional diorama, Abstraction—Fight Against Soil Erosion, 1937, for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Knoxville. No longer extant, the diorama was over seven feet long.[274] Some artists worked in Project studios, which were large, spacious rooms, and a photograph of Weisenborn working on the diorama shows him in one such studio.[275] One critic noted that “Rudolph Weisenborn’s allegiance to the cube and plane has not interfered with his bouncing sense of humor.”[276] The diorama was borrowed from its owners and shown in the foyer of the American Art Today Building at the New York World’s Fair in 1940, with the title Reclamation of Eroded Farm Land.[277] It was also shown at the Art Institute of Chicago (along with cartoons for two murals, Steel Workers and Stock Yards).[278] His methods of creating the diorama, with the aid of assistants, are described in an undated press release.[279]

The diorama is the only known sculpture on which Weisenborn worked. He might have made student sculptural pieces in Denver, but if so, they are lost. It is worth noting that Weisenborn was very innovative; he used color on three-dimensional forms,[280] anticipating sculptural practices now widespread but not in general use until three decades after his diorama was made.[281]

Weisenborn and other artists were featured in a series of one man shows as well as a group exhibits in the Room of Chicago Art at the Art Institute. One exhibit such featured abstract painting and sculpture opening December 31, 1942.[282] Kuh later became a curator at the Art Institute.

The most important of Weisenborn’s patrons was Herman Spertus (born 1901). A native of Ukraine, he moved to Chicago, where he started a business with his younger brother, Maurice. It was called Metalcraft, and it was the first firm to mass produce metal frames, primarily aimed at amateur camera owners who would want to frame photographs. The firm’s first and biggest customer was F.W. Woolworth, the famed chain variety-story operator.[283] After his business began to prosper, Spertus found time to pursue his interest in art. Following classes at the Art Institute, he began to study with Weisenborn, and to think of himself as an artist as well as a manufacturer.[284] This led to Weisenborn’s Portrait of Herman Spertus of 1940 (owned by Spertus’s daughter, who lives in New York). A large painting, about four by five feet, Fritzi Weisenborn described it thusly:

“The Portrait of Herman Spertus is a complete combination of the sitter and the artist. Spertus is one of those individuals who has responded in spirit to this modern age in which we live. He lives in a modern house and works daily among modern machinery. Weisenborn has placed him in this world, and also by placing a brush [sic; it appears to be an engraver’s burin, or perhaps a pen knife] in his hand, symbolizes the man’s responsive emotion to the world of esthetics.”[285]

One can identify the artist’s burin, the machinery from Metalcraft, and, curiously, what appears to be a pink penis-in-a-frame, in the upper left corner of the portrait, symbolizing Herman Spertus as a father. That still leaves unexplained the blue-green planar form that dominates much of the surface.[286] In spite of the seeming abstractness of the rendering, the round, soulful eyes of Herman Spertus look very much like contemporary photographs of him.[287] Other commissions from Herman Spertus included a portrait of his wife, Sara Spertus, a watercolor;[288] it, and the portrait of her husband, were shown at the Art Institute in 1943, but in separate exhibitions.[289]

The most important commission was for a mural, Our Fighting Navy (7½ by 9 feet), for Spertus’ office, also exhibited at the Art Institute.[290] Numerous sketches were made by Weisenborn as he visited the aircraft carrier Sable, stationed in Lake Michigan for training purposes; facsimiles of some of the drawings were shown with the mural.[291] Frank Holland, of the Chicago Sun, noted: “Color, while strong and brilliant, is well controlled and a definite part of the design, not just something put on top of it.” Holland went on to hail the work as “...without doubt the finest thing of the artist’s career.”[292] Our Fighting Navy is on a long-term loan from Spertus to Northwestern University; it is housed in the James L. Allen Center.[293]

Bulliet reported on a new organization “of progressive artists,” the Artists’ League of the Midwest, which was to have its first exhibition in Chicago on February 23, 1947, in the gallery of the Board of Jewish Education, 72 East 11th Street. Weisenborn was a charter member of the organization that included among others several early and ardent Chicago modernists such as Fred Biesel (1893-1953) and Gustaf Dalstrom (1893-1971).[294]

In 1946 and 1947 the Washington-based American Federation of Arts circulated an exhibition selected from the Art Institute of Chicago’s 57th Annual American Exhibition of Water Colors and Drawings; included was Weisenborn’s Control in White (location unknown). There were seven bookings, including the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum in Louisville (November 1-28, 1946), the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (December 29, 1946-January 19, 1947) and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (February 9-March 23, 1947).[295]

Fritzi Weisenborn once summarized that her husband’s work was to be found in collections in London, Glasgow, Paris, and Munich,[296] but it is difficult to establish the details of Weisenborn’s European reputation. On the cover of a Munich cultural magazine, Prisma, in 1947, a work identified as Chicago was,[297] in reality, the image of a painting (and a related silk-screen print), Portrait of the Poet, Selwyn S. Schwartz; the painting and the print were first shown, as mentioned above, at Riccardo’s Studio Restaurant in Chicago on April 23, 1948.[298] Portrait of the Poet, Selwyn S. Schwartz is an example of Weisenborn at his most monumental: the poet appears almost to be a work of architecture. Also in Prisma was an article by John Thwaites that was a translation of an article he had written about an exhibition of American painting at the Tate Gallery.[299] Thwaites owned a copy of the silkscreen version of Portrait of the poet[300] and may have loaned it to Prisma.

Meanwhile, a new generation was protesting the lack of balance in the Art Institute’s Annual exhibits for Chicago area artists. Peter Selz chaired a student committee of the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society who put together a summer, 1947, exhibition “designed to present a more balanced and true representation of local art than is achieved by the Art Institute’s current Chicago annual.”[301] Weisenborn showed an abstraction called Air Conditioned, “painted after a number of trips over Chicago in an open plane,” an attempt to capture “the pull and stress as well as the forms and patterns of the earth from above.”[302]

The 58th Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, held at the Art Institute November 6, 1947, through January 11, 1948 proved to be a showcase for this work. Curated by Katharine Kuh and Frederick A. Sweet, and known as “Abstract and Surrealist American Art,”[303] the show contained important works by artists such as Alexander Calder (1870-1945), Milton Avery (1885-1965) and Jackson Pollack (1912-1956). Although Weisenborn’s entry, Metropolis, was not awarded a prize it, was widely illustrated.[304] Frank Holland described it as a “strongly designed tempera.”[305] The exhibition proved to quite controversial and brought a substantial crowd. Holland reported that the exhibition “is simply packing them in,” and added that “Last Sunday saw the galleries absolutely filled from the opening minutes until closing time.”[306] Holland had found the Abstract and Surrealist American Art exhibition to be “an amazing and thrilling display.” He added:

“There is more color, imagination and just plain good painting on view than has been apparent at an American show in more years than I wish to contemplate. I have seen every American show since 1921; none was as exciting as the present show.”[307]

Critic C. J. Bulliet was uncharacteristically cautious. He pointed out the exhibition “breaks sharply with the 57-year-old tradition of attempting to present a cross-section of what is being produced in studios the country over,” and argued: “It represents a small and comparatively unimportant sector of American art…”[308] Agreeing at least with Bulliet’s main conclusion were several laymen quoted by a reporter, Don Bresnahan, although some laymen were more open than was Bulliet,[309] as was Weisenborn, whose opinion was also sought by Bresnahan. Weisenborn hailed the exhibition as “a milestone in creative painting.” He maintained that: “This is a new art, an American art. These paintings are raw and full of energy, like our stockyards, our Loop, our L.”[310]

The following year, Holland found the 59th American Exhibition an anticlimax to the “exciting abstract and surrealist painting and sculpture” of the previous year. Holland wrote that “312 items in all - most of which are quite ordinary.” Nonetheless Holland found a few works to praise noting: “Rudolph Weisenborn is represented by the strongest abstraction in the show, The Yellow Mask, (location unknown) a casein.”[311]

The last mural of Weisenborn’s career was a part of a series of murals in Riccardo’s Restaurant and Gallery, 437 North Rush Street. In 1947, Weisenborn was one of seven artists who began work on a canvas mural for the restaurant’s bar, representing one of the seven arts; Richard (“Ric”) Riccardo, owner of the restaurant, painted one of the murals himself and the artists he commissioned were, in addition to Weisenborn, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (1897-1983) and his twin brother Malvin Marr Albright (1897-1983 sometimes known as “Zsissily”), Aaron Bohrod (1907-1992), William Samuel Schwartz (1896-1977) and Vincent D’Agostino (1898-1981).[312] All of these artists, including Riccardo himself, had worked on the Illinois Art Project of the WPA.[313] Weisenborn’s mural was called Literature;[314] two preliminary sketches have been identified.[315] A preview of the completed murals was held for the press on May 18, 1948.[316] The bar and restaurant today have been closed and the murals removed to another site,[317] but the setting for the murals, including the palette-shaped bar, can be seen by passers-by through a window. Weisenborn first had work on display at Riccardo’s April 23, 1948, when he showed Portrait of the Poet—Selwyn S. Schwartz (location unknown), a work of 1945. Shown were the original painting, seventy by forty-one inches in size, and a smaller “full color silk-screen reproduction.” Ralph Bellamy was listed as an owner of a silk-screen copy.[318] Another silk-screen, Sunshine and Moonglow (multiple editions, Weisenborn family), was shown at the Palmer House in 1950 (see below).

Weisenborn’s first showing in New York since 1940 was at the Mortimer Levitt Gallery, January 27 through February 15, 1947. Metropolis (1946, Illinois State Museum) and Selma,[319] a striking semi-abstract blocky nude[320] were shown plus eight others. A critic for the New York Times wrote:

“Rudolph Weisenborn has been better known in Chicago than in New York and his current exhibition at the Levitt Gallery should go far to insure his recognition here. Such abstractions as Metropolis and Suspension with their great thrusting rhythms are strikingly decorative and at the same time convey a kind of urban architectural claustrophobia. And Southwest with its brilliant color has captured something of the feeling of an Indian dance. This is powerful and persuasive work.”[321]

A writer for the New York Sun found Weisenborn’s “treatment of form originally stemmed from cubism, and from there he progressed to a bold, vital style of his own,” and noted it was easy to recognize “a city of steel girders and skyscrapers in his Metropolis.”[322]

A follow-up one-person exhibition at the Mortimer Levitt Gallery took place May 3 through 29, 1948, when twelve paintings of 1947 and 1948 were shown, including at least two abstract paintings, Speed[323] and Metropolitan Blues (casein, location unknown).[324] The exhibition was extended through June 5 because it had “proved so popular.”[325] The New York Sun was again supportive, and an unnamed critic found the canvases to be “perfect symbols of the terrific dynamic force of this machine age.” The critic proclaimed: “Better decoration than such canvases as Speed and The Mighty Michigan for the offices of our vast production plants can scarcely be imagined.”[326] An unnamed critic for the New York World-Telegram was less sympathetic however: “little originality and less poetry—unless you find poetry (and some do) in the glitter of neon lights or the rush of traffic, both of which his pictures recall.”[327]

Weisenborn also participated in a group show at the Mortimer Levitt Gallery, “The Arts Work Together—Architecture, Design, Mosaic, Painting, Sculpture Integrate Modern Building,” seen from November 5 through December 6, 1947. Verna Wear, the gallery’s director curated a joint showing of the work of architects, landscape architects, interior designers and fine artists. The idea was that fine artists should collaborate with others during the design process so that, in Wear’s words, “Painting and sculpture no longer appear as after thoughts to otherwise completed buildings but as having developed with the structure from the beginning of the plans.”[328] Models and plans were shown of buildings,[329] some completed, some under construction, and others were “offered as workable ideas.” Presumably Weisenborn’s contribution fell into the latter category: murals for an industrial plant exhibition building, proposed by the Chicago firm of Schweikher & Elting.[330]

The start of the 1950s saw numerous one man and group exhibitions for Weisenborn and the criticism was often favorable, extolling the many varied virtues of his works.[331] Involved also in the interested community at large, Weisenborn gave a demonstration entitled “We Paint Abstractly” for the La Grange Art League, on March 16th at the Y. M. C. A.[332] La Grange is a southwest Chicago suburb. An intriguing group show that Weisenborn participated in during February, 1950, “Equity Comes to Chicago,” was an exhibition of the Artists Equity Association in the galleries of the Associated American Artists at 846 North Michigan Avenue.[333] Bulliet pointed out that: “Radical and conservative artists rub shoulders in the friendliest manner…” and was fascinated that: “Extrem[es] like Rudolph Ingerle, painter of mountains as the tourists see them, and Rudolph Weisenborn, Chicago cubist, hang on the same wall.”[334] Eleanor Jewett praised Weisenborn and William S. Schwartz as sharing “…the honor of having contributed the most decorative and pleasing landscapes.[335] Also, Holland wrote that “...a brilliantly painted, handsome abstraction, Fragment in Blue (location unknown), by Rudolph Weisenborn [is] the best picture included.”[336]

Probably the best indication of a career long achievement by Weisenborn was the acquisition of his Provincetown No.4, 1950, by the Art Institute of Chicago.[337] By this time, the museum had long ceased acquiring works by local artists, preferring instead to vindicate New York’s derogatory classification of Chicago as a second city, by looking elsewhere for its American collections, this in itself a provincial attitude at a museum that was trying overly hard to not be a provincial museum. It remains to this day the only major museum in the world that has turned its back on art of its local community. The piece was the only Weisenborn work, and one of a very rare few by Chicago artists that had been in collection of the Art Institute, and has since been deaccessioned.[338] Copeland C. Burg (1895-1961) hailed the acquisition and credited the Art Institute with showing “excellent taste and judgment” and proclaimed the purchase “wiped out the dark night of many years, in which the institute collection of contemporary American painting has gone without an example of the work of this splendid artist.”[339]

A highlight of Weisenborn’s numerous one-man exhibitions during the 1950s was a show of works chosen by Chicago art critics at the Gallery of Werner’s Books, 338 South Michigan Avenue, from December 3, 1951, to January 25, 1952. Included were twenty-two oils, fourteen caseins and nine drawings, selected by Frank Holland of the Chicago Sun-Times, Eleanor Jewett of the Chicago Tribune, Marilyn Robb of Art News, Clarence J. Bulliet of the Chicago Daily News, and Copeland C. Burg of the Chicago Herald-American.[340] The liveliest comment came from Copeland C. Burg, who praised Weisenborn as “one of the important figures in American art” who “reveals himself with undiminished power.” He went on to proclaim:

“Only Weisenborn can make the walls shake and only he can make a viewer actually quiver in his boots…That big, beautiful painting, Creation of Eve, is our favorite. Its wonderful shapes really do go back to Genesis. Standing in front of it one can see the whole world unfolding. In it are man’s futility, his triumph, life and death, past and future.”[341]

In a follow-up review Burg added that Weisenborn’s exhibition “shows his progress from student days to top standing in the entire country.”[342] Bulliet added an interesting insight: in commenting on Weisenborn’s portrait of Samuel Putnam, stating Putnam was “the discoverer of Weisenborn.”[343]

One intriguing possibility of the exhibition at Werner’s Books remained unfulfilled. Edward G. Robinson (1893‑1973), one of the most famous art collectors of the Hollywood film community,[344] had been urged by Ralph Bellamy to see the exhibition during a visit to Chicago. His schedule did not permit, but he wrote a note to Weisenborn from his Chicago hotel regretting he could not visit the exhibition but ended with hope: “I shall have the pleasure of meeting you and looking at some of your works.”[345] It is unknown if this came to pass.

A profusion of exhibitions in galleries that usually must sell pictures in order to survive would seem to indicate Weisenborn’s works were selling well. Katherine Kuh verified this in 1952, when she was working as a curator at the Art Institute. She reported there were a number of new collectors buying modern art, almost all of it being work by New York or European painters, and noted:

“…as a rule the only Chicago artist represented in these collections is Rudolph Weisenborn, who is in some measure responsible for the upsurge in Chicago buying since several of the most ardent new collectors once studied with him.”[346]

Kuh may have alluded to the students Weisenborn had so skillfully taught for over two decades. A recent exhibition by thirty-one of Weisenborn’s students at Riccardo’s Studio Gallery was an ample example.[347]

The final quarter-century of Weisenborn’s life included at least four summers spent in Provincetown on Cape Cod, in 1949, 1950,[348] 1951 and 1952;[349] and at least one in Santa Fe, New Mexico (the summer of 1953 was spent in Santa Fe).[350] There was also a series of one-person shows held in small Chicago galleries and a 1953 exhibition in Albuquerque.[351] The Jonson Art Gallery of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, was directed by and named for Weisenborn’s painter friend, Raymond Jonson (1891-1992), then a member of the University’s faculty. Weisenborn’s exhibition took place September 13 through 22, 1953, and consisted of twenty paintings and three charcoal portraits,[352] “completed this year and placed on display for the first time;”[353] the charcoal portraits included one of Santa Fe writer and Indian rights activist Oliver LaFarge (1901-1963) (locations unknown).[354]

Another intriguing group exhibit occurred in February 1956. A showing of fifty-eight self-portraits by fifty-seven artists was organized by Jennie Purvin for Mandel Brothers department gallery.[355] One of the last groups shows Weisenborn participated in was held in August 1956, at the House of Arts, 541 North Michigan Avenue. Among Weisenborn’s pictures was The Mirror, described by Frank Holland as: “…a powerfully designed canvas of recognizable subject matter - a woman artist painting her own portrait in a style that I’m afraid looks exactly like that of Weisenborn himself.”[356]

In 1956, he served on the prize jury for the American Jewish Arts Club, showing in the Todros Geller Gallery in the Jewish Education Building at 72 East 11th Street. Weisenborn’s fellow juror was Frank Holland. They agreed the top prize should go to Sheldon Berke for his American Scholar, which had recently been rejected by the jury for the annual exhibit by Chicago artists at the Art Institute.[357]

Probably the very last of the group exhibitions Weisenborn participated in very effectively served to vindicate his earlier distrust of art jurors. In 1957, instead of its traditional Chicago and Vicinity show, the Art Institute provided the prize money and some of the expenses for a large art show held at Navy Pier, without a jury of admission, an extension thirty-five years hence of the first Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists exhibition. Each exhibitor had only to pay an entrance fee of $2.50 per work shown. There were 2,672 works by 1,534 artists in an exhibition that lasted less than two weeks from February 15 through 26, 1957. Weisenborn showed two works, one of which, Figures in Space, won the William H. Tuthill prize of $100. The show was vast and due to the nature of self-selection, varied. The jurors included the Art Institute’s Daniel Catton Rich, Xavier Gonzalez, Joseph Shapiro, Mario C. Ubaldi and John E. Walley.[358] Their shrewd critical insight was best exemplified by the $750 Pauline Palmer Prize to Richard Hunt, then only twenty-one,[359] who went on to become one of Chicago’s best-known and most accomplished artists.

The strength of the no-jury concept was also demonstrated by a European tour of the works of 53 artists chosen from the Navy Pier show; Weisenborn’s Figures in Space (location unknown) was included. The traveling exhibition was seen in France in a castle near Cannes, and in Arras, Rouen and Amiens, as well as in the German cities of Hamburg, Frankfort, Essen, Munich and Regensburg.[360]

A large retrospective Weisenborn exhibition of about sixty works, dating from 1928 through 1957, opened November 4, 1957, at the Frank Ryan Galleries, 1716 North Wells Street.[361] In February 1958, an exhibition of Weisenborn’s works was displayed in the offices of the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.[362]

Two one-person shows in the 1960s marked the end of Weisenborn’s career. The first of these included twenty-two works and took place in the Rosenstone Art Gallery of the Bernard Horwich Jewish Community Center, at 3003 Touhy Avenue, on Chicago’s northwest side, from November 10 to December 1, 1965.[363] At the opening Weisenborn gave a short talk on abstract art,[364] followed by a talk by Harry Bouras, “A Homage to Weisenborn.”[365] Critic Franz Schulze commented:

“Last month’s show was a rewarding reminder that he has always painted as he was moved to paint, independent of the winds of vogue. In so doing he has represented an integrity and a stalwartness of purpose that Chicago contemporary art is the richer for.”[366]

The second of these final one-person shows took place in November 1967, at Gallery 235, located at 235 East Ontario Street It was preceded by a “Special Preview Sale” on October 31 and a 4:00 p.m. “Surprise 86th Birthday Party” on the same day.[367]

After the death of his wife, in 1968, Weisenborn gave up painting,[368] and spent most of the remaining years of his life in nursing homes. He died March 15, 1974, in Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital, in Chicago.

Two intriguing canvases were included in the memorial retrospective exhibition of Weisenborn’s works at the Gilman Galleries, 277 East Ontario Street, Chicago, May 3 to June 30, 1974. Abstract, 1961, and The Canyon, 1963,[369] indicate a movement toward abstract expressionism. Of course there were many avenues through any of which Weisenborn could have become aware of the Abstract Expressionists, but it is intriguing to consider that his friend, Herman Spertus, had become personally acquainted with key New York artists, such as Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Jackson Pollack (1912-1956) and Franz Kline (1910-1962), during some of his frequent visits to New York.[370] Moreover, some young Chicago collectors had begun buying paintings by de Kooning and Kline by the early 1950s, and some of these collectors also bought paintings by Weisenborn.[371]

A slight interest in Weisenborn outside Chicago survived his death. In 1977 one of his paintings was included in a major exhibition in St. Louis surveying the history of painting in the Midwest.[372]

In 1978, a documentary film on Weisenborn was produced and directed by Ron Clasky. Included were interviews with Bouras, Spertus, Gordon Weisenborn and Jack Ellis.[373] It was shown at 9:25 p.m., on May 31, 1980, on public broadcasting, WTTW (channel 11), in Chicago.[374] It was also screened on April 29, 1993, as part of a presentation in the Harold Washington Library in connection with a lecture by Spertus, “Weisenborn’s Windy City: the Life and Art of Rudolph Weisenborn.”[375]

Without a doubt “Weisenborn is an artist whose paintings are ripe for in depth retrospective viewing.”[376] Such an exhibition should take place in the Art Institute the epicenter of art in Chicago.

[175]Fritzi Weisenborn, quoted in: op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 5/4/1935, p.11.

[176]R.A. Lennon, “Modern Artists Not Scornful of Chicago,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 10/15/1927, p.5.

[177]The IHAP library has extensive files on the organization.

[178]Construction was reproduced, with a caption, in: The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/28/1926, p.8.

[179]Samuel Putnam, “Neo-Arlimusc Idea,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/21/1926, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1274.

[180]Jacob Zavel Jacobsen, “Our Little Group of Serious Talkers,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 1/18/1927, pp.8 and 12.

[181]“What is Neo-Arlimusc?”, Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, 1/14/1927, p.8.

[182]“Neo Arlimusc,” a fund raising letter sent by the Arts Club to its members, dated 10\13\1927, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frame 1276.

[183]Op. cit., Putnam, Chicago Evening Post, 12/21/1926.

[184]Archives of America Art microfilm 856, frame 0623.

[185]It is not clear how much remodeling was actually done; Weisenborn’s ambitious design for the remodeling was published in: Blanche Mathias, “Neo Arlimusc and Its Moment of Now,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11/22/1927, p.5.

[186]Op. cit., Mathias, Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11\22\1927, p.5.

[187]Samuel Putnam, “Nudes Too Tame—Devoid of ‘Kick’—Must Go; Neo-Arlimusc Show Lacking in ‘Salt’,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 4/19/1927, pp.[1] and 12.

[188]Clarence J. Bulliet, “German Expressionist Added to Local Group,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 6/28/1927, p.2.

[189]“Neo Arlimusc,” unidentified Chicago newspaper clipping, 6/[?]/1927, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1287.

[190]Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 7/26/1927, p.8.

[191]Op. cit., Lennon, “Modern Artists Not Scornful of Chicago,”p.5. The painting described was probably Chicago (1924).

[192]“Neo Arlimusc,” Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, 10/14/1927, p. 8.

[193]Letter to Lloyd C. Engelbrecht from Helmut von Erffa, 3/22/1973 (in the author’s files). On von Erffa in Chicago, see also: op. cit., Engelbrecht, “Association of Arts and Industries,” 1973, pp. 138-140 and 151-152

[194]Brooks, H. Allen, The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwest Contemporaries, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), p.328. Brooks mistakenly gave the date as 1925; see op. cit., Engelbrecht, “Association of Arts and Industries,” 1973, pp. 117 and 151.

[195]“Neo Arlimusc,” Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, 11/4/1927, p.7.

[196]“Neo Arlimusc,” Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, 11/11/1927, p.7.

[197]An announcement is in Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1300; see also: “Neo Arlimusc,” Chicago Evening Post Literary Review, 11/4/1927, p.7; and idem, 11/11/1927, p.7.

[198]“Modernists to Offer Midnight ‘Alley Oop’,” Chicago Daily News, 11/22/1927. It is interesting to note that one of Rudolph’s friends, John Grierson, became a documentary filmmaker [see: Terence A. Senter, “Moholy-Nagy in England: May 1935 – July 1937” (M.Ph. thesis, Unversity of Nottingham, 1975), p.7 et passim], as did Rudolph’s son, Gordon.

[199]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment on the Seven Arts,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 2/14/1928, p.8.

[200]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment on the Seven Arts; Meier-Graefe Comes and Goes,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 2/28/1928, p.8.

[201]“Neo Arlimusc,” unidentified Chicago newspaper clipping, 3/[?]/1928, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1309.

[202]Op. cit., “Neo Arlimusc,” unidentified Chicago newspaper clipping, 3/[?]/1928.

[203]The class, “limited to a small group of artists and students,” met Thursday evenings, according to brief notice in: Chicago Daily News, 4/19/1928, p.19.

[204]Op. cit., Gordon [Fritzi Weisenborn], Chicago Times, 3/24/1940, p.5-M. In her essay, covering pages 4-M and 5-M, Frizi described how the adventurous intellectual scene of the Near North Side of her youth had been replaced by a tamer “Bohemia with a haircut.”

[205]His belief in sitting upon juries did not prevent him from continuing to exhibit in shows such as the annual Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists, where in 1932, his entry Mrs. Montgomery, was featured in the Chicago Evening Post, 6/7/1932, Art Section, p.8.

[206]“Jewish Arts Club,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 2/28/1928, p.5. For further documentation see undated clipping from the Chicago Times in the Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frame 1465.

[207]“Art War Flares, Moderns on Top,” 10/24/1928, p.6, and “Modern Victors at Art Exhibit,” 10/25/1928, p.6, both in the Chicago Daily News.

[208]Lena M. McCauley, “Jury Scored for ‘Shattering Faith’,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 10/10/1928, pp.1,4,11; and Catalogue of the Forty-First Annual American Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Art Institute of Chicago, October 25 to December 16, 1928, (Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 1928), pp.14 and 31. The painting was illustrated in the catalogue The Emergence of Modernism in Illinois, 1914-1940, (Springfield: Illinois State Museum, 1976), unpaged.

[209]Quoted in: op. cit., “Art War Flares,” p.6.

[210]Quoted in: The Chicago Herald and American, 8/24/1924, p.1.

[211]Reproduced , with a date of 1926, in The New Art Examiner, Vol. 17, No. 5, January, 1990, supplement (“Chicago Artist Pages”), page 19A (in an advertisement for the Gilman/Gruen Gallery); in op. cit., Illinois State Museum, Springfield, The Emergence of Modernism in Illinois, front cover; and in Judith A. Barker and Lynn E. Springer, Currents of Expansion: Painting in the Midwest, 1820-1940, the St. Louis Art Museum, February 18-April 10, 1977, (St. Louis: St. Louis Art Museum, 1977), pp.146-147 (an implausible date of 1929 is given on page 146, evidently because it was shown at the Art Institute that year).

[212]Reproduced in op. cit., Kruty, “Declaration of Independents,” p.86.

[213]Rudolph Weisenborn, notes for an autobiographical sketch, quoted in op. cit., Hey, p.241.

[214]Op. cit., Falk, The Annual Exhibition Record…, p.940.

[215]Reproduced in Sue Ann Prince, editor, The Old Guard and the Avant-garde, plate 10; an illustration of Blue Tree, identified only as a landscape, appeared in the Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/9/1926, p.9.

[216]On Bulliet see: Engelbrecht, “Association of Arts and Industries,” 1973, pp.181-190 et passim. See also: Sue Ann Prince, “Clarence J. Bulliet: Chicago’s Lonely Champion of Modernism,” Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 26, Nos. 2 and 3, 1986, pp.21-32, and Prince, “Of the Which and the Why,” in Sue Ann Prince, editor, The Old Guard and the Avant-garde, pp.103-117.

[217]Op. cit., Bulliet, Apples and Madonnas, 233-234.

[218]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Weisenborn Caught in Swirl of Emotion,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/4/1930, p.4.

[219]Op. cit., Bulliet, Apples and Madonnas, 233-234.

[220]Op. cit., Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/4/1930, p.4. Cliffa was later known as Kitchen Symphony. According to West Weisenborn (telephone interview with Lloyd C. Engelbrecht, 1/10/1999), the model was Cliffa Carson, a family friend from Iron Mountain, Michigan. West recalled her efficiency in the kitchen, e.g., her ability to slice bread so that each slice was identical to the others.

[221]Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/11/1930, p.12.

[222]Eleanor Jewett, “Gerald A. Frank Wins $50 Award from Municipal Art League,” Chicago Tribune, 3/6/1930, p.17 [the review followed a brief unrelated news item].

[223]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment on the Seven Arts…Of Rudolph the Fearful,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/11/1930, p.6.

[224]Eleanor Jewett, “French Writer Investigates Modernism; Finds Mad Men Paint as Well as Normal Ones [and] Many Shows Seem to Prove This Claim,” Chicago Tribune, 3/9/1930, part E, p.3.

[225]Inez Cunningham, “Sketch of a Picture Buyer and Her Fear of Buying; Weisenborn Showing at the Woman’s Aid,” Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/2/1930, p.12.

[226]Op. cit., Cunningham, Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/2/1930, p.12.

[227]Op. cit., Cunningham, Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/2/1930, p.12.

[228]Op. cit., Raymond Jonson to Mrs. M.J. Sparks, May 5, 1970; “Raymond Jonson,” in: Illinois State Museum, Springfield, The Emergence of Modernism in Illinois, unpaged; and Ed Garman, The Art of Raymond Jonson, Painter, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,1976), pp.2 and 177-178.

[229]Op. cit., Garman, The Art of Raymond Jonson, p.182.

[230]Shiva’s first address in Santa Fe was shown jointly with Chicago in Charlotte Ball, editor, Who’s Who in American Art, Volume III, (The American Federation of Arts, 1940), p.587.

[231]Oral history of Rudolph Weisenborn, recorded May 16, 1997, by West Weisenborn; and op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery.

[232]“Hits Chicago Art Welcome,” Chicago Herald-Examiner, 9/21/1924, [page number not available; a copy is in Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks, Vol. 48, p.126].

[233]Stanislaw Szukalski, The Work of Szukalski, (Chicago: Covici-McGee, 1923), and idem, Sculpture and Architecture; Szukalski Projects in Design, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929). Szukalski’s career did not receive much benefit from these publications; by the time the second one appeared, he had already returned to Poland, taking with him nearly all of his work (most of which was later destroyed in the bombing during World War II). He later moved to California. http://szukalski.com/about.htm, accessed 12/27/2014.

[234]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Chicago, Bulliet and the Peyton Boswells,” Art Digest, 11/1/1951, p.40.

[235]Clarence J. Bulliet, The Significant Moderns and Their Pictures (Chicago: Covici-Friede, Publishers, 1936), pp.121-124 and plate 197. Bulliet family history [IHAP Library] draws a love affair connection between Bahnc and Bulliet.

[236]Op. Cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 4/12/1941, p.15. Bulliet had earlier made the comment that Weisenborn was the “only painter Chicago has produced who has done anything really worth while in the difficult and dangerous field of pure abstraction…” C. J. Bulliet, in “Artless Comment,” “Sixteen Significant Chicago Painters, Chicago Daily News, 5/20/1933, Art and Artists section, p.17. His Chicago was chosen for this show in 1933 at Findlay galleries by Bulliet.

[237]Op. Cit., Bulliet, Apples and Madonnas, 234.

[238]The Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, Announcements for February, [1932}, folder, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2400, frame 0146; the date on the announcement is unclear, but evidently the lecture was given on 2/19/1932. See also: Joseph Scanlon, editor, A History of the Renaissance Society; the First Seventy-Five Years, (Chicago: Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, 1993), p.139.

[239]A copy of an announcement is in the Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1149.

[240]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery; “The Work of Rudolph Weisenborn,” Inland Architect; the Magazine of Inland Area Building and Planning, January 1958, p.7. Illustrated in: Mitchell Siporin, “The Weisenborn Retrospective,” The Chicago Artist [published by the Artists Union of Chicago], Vol. 1, No. 6 (February, 1938), p.2, and in a brochure: “The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts…1934 Summer Session,” unpaged. A copy of the brochure is on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856; Machine Movement is illustrated on frame 1143.

[241]Op. cit., “The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts,” unpaged, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frames 1143-1146.

[242]Lenox R. Lohr, Fair Management, the Story of A Century of Progress Exposition; a Guide for Future Fairs, (Chicago: The Cuneo Press, Inc., 1952), pp.74-76.

[243]See: op. cit., Engelbrecht, “Association of Arts and Industries,” 1973, pp.170-171.

[244]Letter to Inez Cunningham Stark from G. B. Stephenson, 6/18/1935, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2401, frame 0338, and Federal Emergency Relief Administration, The Emergency Work Relief Program of the F. E. R. A., submitted by the Work Division, (New York: Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 1935), pp.[iii], [1]. See also: George J. Mavigliano and Richard A. Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois 1935-1943, (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), p.137.

[245]University of Chicago, Weekly Calendar, Vol. 40, No. 3, 6/29/1935. The Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, Exhibition of Paintings and Designs Made for Illinois Art project [of the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission] by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, from July 1 through August 8…, broadside, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2401, frames 0333-0334. “Exhibition of Chicago Art to Open Today at U. of C.,” Chicago Tribune, 7/1/1935, p.21. Op. cit., Scanlon, A History of the Renaissance Society, pp.140-141.

[246]Typed listing, “Exhibition of Works Produced for the Illinois Art project,” Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2401, frame 0336.

[247]Weisenborn showed in a total of six group shows at the Renaissance Society; see op. cit., Scanlon, A History of the Renaissance Society, pp. 140-141, 143-146, 150 and 177; and Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2401, frames 1411-1429. See also: Frank Holland, “Society Opens Exhibition of Chicago Art,” Chicago Sun, 7/20/1947, p.23; the 1947 exhibition is discussed below.

[248]Jewett mentions his address on Rush in 1935 and then on Irving Park in 1937. “October Brings Brisk Revival of Art in Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, 10/13/1935, part 8, p.9, and “Benton Exhibit Is Worthy of Public Notice,” Chicago Tribune, 10/31/1937, part 8, p.5.

[249]Oral history of Rudolph Weisenborn, recorded May 16, 1997, by West Weisenborn.

[250]John R. Lane and Susan C. Larsen, Abstract painting and Sculpture in America, 1927-1944, (Pittsburgh: Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, in association with Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1983), p.36.

[251]Holabird & Root, architects, 1929, no longer extant. Interior views are in: Stuart E. Cohen, Chicago Architects, (Chicago: The Swallow Press, Inc., 1976), figs.53-54; photographs of the gallery are in: op. cit., Berman, The Old Guard and the Avant-garde…, one of c.1938, p.163, and one of November 1940, p.157.

[252]Op. cit., Berman, The Old Guard and the Avant-garde…, pp.155-169.

[253]C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Abercrombie, Weisenborn,” Chicago Daily News, 4/3/1937, Art, Antiques and The Artists section, p.4R. See also: John and Molly Thwaites, “Rudolph Weisenborn at the K. Kuh Gallery, Chicago,” Magazine of Art, June 1937, Vol. 30, No. 6, June, 1937, pp.389-390.

[254]In op. cit., Berman, The Old Guard and the Avant-garde…, a date is given as March, 1941, on p.169, but the timing of the reviews suggests a slightly later date: Fritzi Weisenborn, “Plastic Painting ‘Speaks’,” Sunday Chicago Times Magazine, 4/6/1941, p.11-M; Edith Weigle, “Institute Style Revue to Show Art Influence,” Chicago Tribune, 4/18/1941, p.22; and Clarence J. Bulliet, “The Divine Rage of Rudolph,” Chicago Daily News, 4/12/1941, Art, Antiques & Interiors Section, p.15.

[255]Illustrated in op. Cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, Sunday Chicago Times Magazine, 4/6/1941, p.11-M; op. cit., Bulliet, Chicago Daily News, 4/12/1941, p.15; and “Rudolph Weisenborn,” Pictures on Exhibit, Vol. 4, April 1941, pp.23 and 34.

[256]Op. cit., Mavigliano Richard Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois, 1935-1943, 1990, pp.15-18 and plate 11. (Mavigliano and Lawson made no mention of the earlier art project set up by the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission.)

[257]No published illustration of Electricians has been found.

[258]Op. cit., Mavigliano and Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois, p.144; and John and Mollie Thwaites, “Seeing the Shows in Chicago…Five New Panels by Rudolph Weisenborn,” Magazine of Art, Vol. 30, No. 9, September, 1937, pp.576-578 [Boilermakers, Pipe Fitters, and Architects is illustrated on p.576].

[259]Fritzi Weisenborn, quoted in: “Another W.P.A. Mural Disappears,” Art Digest, Vol. 17, No. 20, 9/1/1943, p.17; Steelworkers is illustrated; it shows a crew of steelworkers erecting a steel-frame skyscraper. Steelworkers is also illustrated in an undated clipping from an unidentified Chicago newspaper, Debs Myers, “The Case of a School [missing words] Murals—Real-Life Mystery! Suspense!,” Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1466.

[260]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, Art Digest, 9/1/1943, p.17

[261]Op. cit., Thwaites, Magazine of Art, September 1937, p.577.

[262]Op. cit., Thwaites, Magazine of Art, September 1937, pp.576 and 578; Satirical Musical Comedy is illustrated on p.576.

[263]Op. cit., Magazine of Art, September, 1938, p.531.

[264]Op. cit., Siporin, The Chicago Artist, February, 1938 p.2; the elegantly printed catalogue, Retrospective Exhibition of the Paintings and Drawings of Rudolph Weisenborn, February First to March First [1938], a folder with six unnumbered pages, listed a number of sponsors, as well as others, such as Kuh and Moholy-Nagy, who were listed as persons “The Sponsors with to thank”; Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pamphlet box P-05500. Moholy had recently arrived in Chicago from London, and one can only surmise that Grierson, a close friend of Moholy’s in London, had spoken to him about Weisenborn’s planned exhibition and thus Moholy was disposed to supply some valued service for the exhibition.

[265]The building later housed the Tavern Club [now closed] with murals by another artist featured in the forthcoming book A History of Illinois Painters 1850-1950, John Warner Norton (1876-1934).

[266]Op. cit., Siporin, The Chicago Artist, February 1938 p.2.

[267]Op. cit., Retrospective Exhibition of the Paintings and Drawings of Rudolph Weisenborn.

[268]An announcement of the three lectures is reproduced on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1149.

[269]Op. cit., Mavigliano and Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois, pp.19 and 156; and John McDonough, “Art’s Great Pageant: the WPA Murals of the ‘30s…”, Chicago Tribune Magazine, 12/10/1995, pp.30-31 and 41.

[270]Peter L. Strazz, “Preserving Bits of History in WPA Murals,” Skyline, 10/17-23/1996, sec.1, p.1.

[271]See, e.g., Richard Guy Wilson, Dianne H. Pilgrim and Dickran Tashjian, The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941, (New York: The Brooklyn Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, Publishers, 1986).

[272]The right-hand portion of the mural is closely related to a 1938 painting, Industry. That painting was included in an exhibition in the Block Gallery at Northwestern University, “Thinking Modern: Painting in Chicago, 1910-1940,” held January 18 to April 5, 1992. There was no catalogue, but the painting was reproduced in the announcement brochure cover.

[273]West Weisenborn remembers going to Western films with his father, and that his father always sat in the first row, evidently to make the Western scenery in the backgrounds assume the scale he remembered from the west (telephone interview, West Weisenborn with Lloyd C. Engelbrecht, 6/26/1998). Op. cit.,“Exhibit at Riccardo’s—Weisenborn First Abstract Painter,” sec.2, p.5. “B” pictures and triple features are references to the numerous low-budget Western films made in Hollywood, in contrast to a relatively small number of high-budget Western feature films.

[274]Archives of American Art microfilm reel 1110, frames 0147 and 0148; a detail was published in: Shepard Vogelgesang, “Your Country Gives the Artist Work,” Chicago Times, 10/24/1937, p.16.

[275]Op. cit., Archives of American Art microfilm reel 1110, frame 0147; The Chicago Artist, volume 1, number 8 (February, 1938), front cover (available on microfilm reel 856, frame 1415).

[276]Op. cit., Gardner, Magazine of Art, 9/1/1938, p.531.

[277]Holger Cahill, “American Art Today ...National Panorama of the WPA Projects,” Art News, Vol. 38, Supplement 51, 5/25/1940, pp.50-51. The diorama was illustrated on p.51.

[278]See the introductory essay included in a mimeographed folder along with a check list of works shown at an exhibition at the Palmer House Gallery, March 30 through April 23, 1950, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frame 1385; and op. cit., Gardner, Magazine of Art, 9/1/1938, pp.530-531 and 550. Gardner illustrated a sketch, and the completed mural, on page 530.

[279]Press release of four typed pages, with a (typed) signature of Rudolph Weisenborn, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frames 0013-0016, undated but probably 1940.

[280]Op. cit., press release of four typed pages, with a (typed) signature of Rudolph Weisenborn, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 0016.

[281]In 1964 Weisenborn also made a large related painting, TVA, measuring 60 by 72 inches. Op. cit., Rosenstone Art Gallery, Bernard Horwich Center, Rudolph Weisenborn, a Retrospective, unpaged. It was illustrated in: Edward Barry, “Artist of Any Era; Weisenborn: Restless, Curious Iconoclast,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, 11/7/1965, p.69.

[282]Op. cit., “Chicago’s Own,” p.18; Dorothy Odenheimer, “Abstract Art—A challenge for 1943,” Chicago Sun, 1/3/1943, p.24; Clarence J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries ...Eight Abstractionists,” Chicago Daily News, 1/2/1943, p.18; and idem, “Around the Galleries ...Abstractions of War,” Chicago Daily News, 1/9/1943, p.6.

[283]Elliot B. Lefkovitz, A Passion for Life; the Story of Herman and Maurice Spertus, (Chicago: Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1994), pp.10 and 13-15.

[284]Op. cit., Lefkovitz, A Passion for Life, pp.41-43.

[285]Op. cit., Pictures on Exhibit, April 1941, p.34; the same passage, with minor changes in wording, appeared in: op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, Sunday Chicago Times Magazine, 4/6/1941, p.11-M

[286]For more on the work see, op. cit., Engelbrecht, “The Association of Arts and Industries,” 1973, p.205.

[287]E.g., op. cit., Lefkovitz, A Passion for Life, photograph facing p.35.

[288]Sara Spertus is illustrated in: Marilyn Robb, “Chicago,” Art News, February 1950, Vol. 48, No. 10, p.53.

[289]Op. cit., Falk, The Annual Exhibition Record…, p.940.

[290]Op. cit. Art Digest, 1/15/1943, p.9.

[291]Op. cit., Art Digest, 1/15/1943, p.9; op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery; and oral history of Rudolph Weisenborn, recorded May 16, 1997, by West Weisenborn. Many of the sketches were microfilmed by the Archives of American Art and appear on microfilm reel 856.

[292]Frank Holland, “Navy Masterpiece Shown by Rudolph Weisenborn,” Chicago Sun, 7/22/1945; Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frame 1393.

[293]http://alumni.kellogg.northwestern.edu/documents/KelloggArtBroch-8.23.pdf, accessed 12/27/2014.

[294]Clarence J. Bulliet, “New Artist League Schedules Exhibit,” Chicago Daily News, 2/15/1947, p.11, and “Progressive Artists Unite,” Art Digest, 2/15/1947, p.11.

[295]Letter from George G. Thorp to Rudolph Weisenborn, TLS, 8/1/1946 and 5/2/1947; the letter, with a one-page enclosure, is on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frames 1334, 1335 and 1336, respectively.

[296]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery.

[297]Prisma, Vol.1, No.5, April, 1947, front cover and frontispiece; Portrait of the Poet, Selwyn S. Schwartz is mis-dated to 1942.

[298]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, “News Release—April 23rd [1948].”

[299]John Thwaites, “Die amerikanische Malerie der Gegenwart,” Prisma, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 1947, pp.15-16, frontispiece and plates I through IV. [translated: The Chicago artist Rudolph Weisenborn paints in a different manner than [John] Marin, since he immediately expresses a feeling of greatness which is monumental, even raw.] [Stuart Davis and Weisenborn show another aspect of surface and light. They place hard, screaming colors next to each other, making you aware of the obtrusive surface and the unforgiving light; you even think you hear the noise.] Translated from German by the author and Klaus Mladek.

[300]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, “News Release—April 23rd [1948].”

[301]Op. cit, Holland, Chicago Sun, 7/20/1947, p.23. “Art Calendar,” Chicago Sun, 6/6/1947, p. 19; and Representative Works by Chicago Artists, July 12-August 8, 1947 [presented by] The Student Committee of the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 2402, frames 1559-1561.

[302]Op. cit, Holland, Chicago Sun, 7/20/1947, p.23.

[303]Op cit., Abstract and Surrealist American Art; Fifty‑eighth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture.

[304]Op cit., Abstract and Surrealist American Art; Fifty‑eighth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture; Edith Weigle, “Meet the Moderns,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, 12/14/1947, p.12; The Cherry Circle, Chicago Athletic Association, November 1947, p.39. See also: Letter to Rudolph Weisenborn from Edith Weigle, 1/16/1948, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 0034.

[305]Frank Holland, “American Show Well Attended,” Chicago Sun and Times, 11/16/1947, p.50.

[306]Op. cit., Holland, Chicago Sun and Times, 11/16/1947, p.50.

[307][Frank Holland], “Institute Show Called Amazing,” Chicago Sun and Times, 11/9/1947, p.12.

[308]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Exhibit a Nightmare; Witches’ Orgy Covers Walls at Art Institute,” Chicago Daily News, 11/5/1947, p.21.

[309]Don Bresnahan, “House Paint Expert, 81, Brushes Off Surrealists,” Chicago Sun and Times, 11/16/1947, p.32. The pictures accompanying Bresnahan’s story appeared on p.39, under the caption: “Lowdown on Higher (?) Art.”

[310]Quoted in op. cit., Bresnahan, Chicago Sun and Times, p.32. (L is local slang for elevated rapid transit; Loop is the local term for either downtown Chicago or, more specifically, the loop that the L makes that helps to define downtown.)

[311]Frank Holland, “Excepting Graves, Feininger Art, American Exhibit Proves Mediocre, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/7/1948, p.8X.

[312]“Thanks to Riccardo 7 Ex-WPA Artists Sign $100,000 Contract,” Chicago Daily News, 1/14/1947, p.6; “Get Paid to Paint What They Please,” Chicago Daily News, 2/15/1947, [page number not available], Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1328; and Irv Kupcinet, “Kup’s Column,” Chicago Times, 1/14/1947, p.27.

[313]Op. cit., Mavigliano and Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois, pp.112, 114, 117,131, 133 and 137.

[314]See: “Minestrone, Martinis and Truth,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8/2/1959, [section number not available], p.4 [Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1459], where all of the murals are illustrated; see also: Clarence J. Bulliet, “New Bohemia,” Art Digest, Vol.22, No. 11, 3/1/1948, p.20.

[315]One of Weisenborn’s sketches for the mural (charcoal, nineteen by twenty-five inches) can be seen on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frames 0683 and 0684; part of another can be seen in a photograph with the caption, “Rudolph Weisenborn ...Discussing Sketches for His Mural with Ric Riccardo…,” Art Digest, Vol. 22, No. 16, 5/15/1948, p.11.

[316]The invitation for the press can be seen in Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frames 1272 and 1273.

[317]Art collector Seymour Persky purchased the murals and then lent them to the Union League Club. They were later removed from the club and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006, and again in 2007 at the Chicago History Museum. See the PAFA exhibition catalogue Art In Chicago: Resisting Regionalism, Transforming Modernism, curator Robert Cozzolino, who authored the essay for the IHAP on Ivan Albright.

[318]Fritzi Weisenborn, “News Release—April 23rd [1948],” Archives of American Art, microfilm 856, frame 1371; a copy of the general invitation [with opening day misdated] is in the Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet box P-05500.

[319]The checklist can be seen on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1322.

[320]Selma (location unknown) was illustrated in: op. cit., Reed, Art Digest, 11/15/1947, p.20, and on the invitation, Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet file P-05500, and Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1322. According to West Weisenborn (telephone interview with Lloyd C. Engelbrecht, 1/10/99), the model was the painter’s daughter-in-law, the former Selma Revson, wife of Gordon.

[321]Howard Devree, “Many and Diverse; One-Man Shows Include Work by a Score of Contemporary American Artists,” New York Times, 2/2/1947, section 2, p. 7.

[322]Helen Carlson, “Marked Contrasts in Current Shows… Mortimer Levitt Gallery,” New York Sun, 2/7/1947, p.23; other reviews included, “Rudolph Weisenborn,” Art News, Vol.45, No. 12, February 1947, p.47, and “Rudolph Weisenborn, First New York Show…,” Pictures on Exhibit, February 1947, p.20.

[323]Illustrated in a flyer for the Mortimer Levitt Gallery, illustrating Speed, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet file p-05500.

[324]Illustrated in: “Artist Gives Buyer a Four-Way Choice,” Chicago Sun-Times, 5/5/1948, p.11.

[325]Norine Foley, “The Town Crier,” Chicago Daily News, 6/1/1948.

[326]Helen Carlson, “Paintings and Prints ...Mortimer Levitt Gallery,” New York Sun, 5/7/1948, p.25. The paintings are unlocated.

[327]“Weisenborn’s Works,” New York World-Telegram, 5/11/1948, p.20; see also: “Weisenborn, Pioneer,” Art Digest, Vol. 22, No. 16, 5/15/1948, p.11; and “Rudolph Weisenborn,” Art News, May 1948, Vol.47, No. 3, p.49.

[328]Verna Wear, announcement, New York, 1947, “The Arts Work Together” Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frames 1356 and 1357.

[329]Howard Devree, “The Arts Integrated; Artists and Architects Join in Projects,” New York Times, 11/9/1947, section 2, p.12 X. See also: Judith Kaye Reed, “Integrating the Arts,” Art Digest, Vol. 22, No. 4, 11/15/1947, p.17.

[330]Op. cit., Wear, announcement, 1947.

[331]Portraits some of semi-abstract nature at Riccardo’s Restaurant and Studio Gallery from 3/1 to 3/31/1950. Eleanor Jewett of the Tribune found the colors “loud and cheerful” and offered the opinion that Weisenborn “is not afraid to let his emotions run away with him.” Eleanor Jewett, “Art to Please Every Taste Now on Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 3/19/1950, part 7, p.4; Frank Holland, “Critic Hails Collection of Portraits in One-Man Show by Weisenborn,” Chicago Sun-Times, 3/12/1950, sec.2, p.17; Marilyn Robb, “Chicago,” Art News, Vol. 48, No. 10, February, 1950, p.53. A painting of his wife Fritzi was among those shown: the picture appears in op. cit., Kruty, The Old Guard and the Avant Garde, p.81, as part of a photograph showing Weisenborn at work and his wife, seated, striking a pose. (Kruty refers to her as an “unidentified woman.”). The gallery of the Palmer House Hotel showed seventeen caseins and oils, as well as one silk-screen print, from March 30 to April 23, 1950. For criticism see: Copeland C. Burg, “Weisenborn Art Exhibit Praised,” Chicago Herald-American, 4/8/1950, p.16; Clarence J. Bulliet, “Art in Chicago: Season for Veterans,” Art Digest, Vol. 24, No. 14, 4/15/1950, p.26; and Eleanor Jewett, “Art by 4 Men on Display…,” Chicago Tribune, 4/3/1950, part 3, p.4, and idem, “April Offering Many Exciting Art Exhibitions,” ibid., 4/9/1950, part 7, p.6; see also, op. cit., the check list and introductory essay for an exhibition at the Palmer House Gallery, March 30 through April 23, 1950, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel 856, frame 1385. An exhibition at the Gordon Gallery, 217 West Madison Street, “a new gallery which has the decided distinction of not charging artists for sales,” showed twenty-four of Weisenborn’s oils, caseins, charcoal and pen-and-ink drawings from 10/2 to 10/28/1950. Frank Holland, “Art,” Chicago Sun-Times, 10/15/1950, sec.2, p.19; and Copeland C. Burg, “Weisenborn Painting Exhibit Pleases Critic,” Chicago Herald-American, 10/17/1950, p.27 (not in all editions, but found in the City/Turf edition); the invitation is in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet box P-05500, and on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1397. Riccardo’s Restaurant and Gallery was the scene of another Weisenborn show in March, 1951; Copeland C. Burg, “1-Man Show Exciting,” Chicago Herald-American, 3/13/1951; Eleanor Jewett, “Two Artists’ Works Make Worthy Show,” Chicago Tribune, 3/10/1951, part 2, p.5; Art Digest, Vol. 25, No. 11, 3/1/1951, p.34. A well-reviewed one-person showing of recent works was at the House of Arts, 541 North Michigan Avenue, in May 1956. Frank Holland, “Weisenborn Show Heads Lengthy List of Spring Exhibitions,” Chicago Sun-Times, 5/20/1956, sec.2, p.10; Frank L. Hayes, “Weisenborn’s Art Shows Old Gusto,” Chicago Daily News, 6/1/1956, p.20, Hayes called him the “dean of Chicago abstractionsists”; and Eleanor Jewett, “Circus Comes to Life in New Art Exhibit,” Chicago Tribune, 5/9/1956, part 3, p.6.

[332]“Modern Art for Program; La Grange Artists to Hear Talk on Abstract Art,” La Grange Park Citizen, 5/35/1950, page number not known; a clipping is on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1386.

[333]Frank Holland, “Van Gogh Exhibit Lifts Art Activity,” Chicago Sun-Times, 2/12/1950, sec.2, p.18.

[334]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Extremists Side by Side at Equity Exhibition,” Chicago Daily News, 2/10/1950, p.27. See also: Bulliet, “Art in Chicago,” Art Digest, Vol. 24, 2/15/1950, p.17.

[335]Eleanor Jewett, “Chicago Area Art Shown in 2 Exhibitions,” Chicago Tribune, 2/19/1950, part 7, p.4.

[336]Op. cit., Holland, “Van Gogh Exhibit, sec.2, p.18.

[337]Op cit., Jewett, “Two Modernists’s Works Acquired for Art Institute,” Chicago Tribune, 5/12/1951, part 2, p.5.

[338]Eleanor Jewett, “Various Clubs Pose Queries on Today’s Art,” Chicago Tribune, 5/20/1951, part 7, p.4. Sale 2469, Christies Interiors, 4 - 5 October 2011.

[339]Copeland C. Burg, “Art Institute Buys Weisenborn Painting,” Chicago Herald-American, May, [day not available] 1951, in Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbooks. It is touching to realize how much this event meant to Weisenborn: he made a point of being photographed in 1955 for a Chicago newspaper while he was looking at the painting with his famous friend, actor Ralph Bellamy. The picture is labeled in

[340]Frank Holland, “Works in Exhibit Selected by Critics,” Chicago Sun-Times, 12/9/1951, sec.2, p.8; Copeland C. Burg, “Weisenberg Exhibition Thrills Art Lovers,” Chicago Herald-American, 12/9/1951, p.41; “Retrospective Exhibition,” Art News, Vol. 50, No.9, January, 1952, p.50; Clarence J. Bulliet, “Art in Chicago,” Art Digest, Vol. 26, No. 6, 12/15/1951, p.14; and idem, op. cit., “Weisenborn Show Reveals Power, Energy of Painter, 70,” Chicago Daily News, 12/7/1951, p.26.

[341]Op. cit., Burg, Chicago Herald-American, 12/9/1951, p.41.

[342]Copeland C. Burg, “Weisenborn Art Exhibit to Close,” Chicago Herald-American, 1/14/1952, p. 4.

[343]Op. cit., “Weisenborn Show Reveals Power, Energy of Painter, 70,” p.26.

[344]Robinson, Jane, Edward G. Robinson’s World of Art, (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).

[345]Edward G. Robinson to Rudolph Weisenborn, typed letter, signed, on Hotels Ambassador stationery, 1/2/1952, Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 0035.

[346]Katharine Kuh, “Chicago’s New Collectors,” Art Digest, Vol. 20, No. 16, 5/15/1952, p.5.

[347]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Thirty-One Students of Rudolph Weisenborn,” Chicago Daily News, 2/2/1951; Art Digest, Vol. 25, No. 9, 2/1/1951, p.34; Copeland C. Burg, “Art of Weisenborn’s Pupils Exciting Show,” Chicago Herald-American, 2/6/1951. For related interest see also, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1947), pp.35 and 93.

[348]Frank Holland, “Art,” Chicago Sun-Times, 10/15/1950, sec. 2, p.19. November, 1950, brought an exhibition, “Abstractions by Weisenborn, Including the First Showing of Recent Paintings of Provincetown,” at the Well Of the Sea Gallery in the Hotel Sherman. Marilyn Robb, Art News From Chicago ...Provincetown Abstract,” Art News, Vol. 49, No. 7, November, 1950, p.52; “Abstractions by Weisenborn, Including the First Showing of Recent Paintings of Provincetown,” invitation in Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet box P-05500.

[349]Clarence J. Bulliet, “Weisenborn Show Reveals Power, Energy, of Painter, 70,” Chicago Daily News, 12/7/1951, p.26.

[350]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery.

[351]Op. cit., Fritzi Weisenborn, press release of 1953 for an exhibition at the Jonson Gallery.

[352]Picture caption, Albuquerque Journal, 9/6/1953, p.17.

[353]“Chicago Artist Opens Exhibit,” The New Mexican (Santa Fe), 9/6/1953, section A, p.5.

[354]The portrait was illustrated in: op. cit, The New Mexican, 9/6/1953, p.5; and in the Albuquerque Journal, 9/13/1953, p.17

[355]Weisenborn was the only artist with two self-portraits both illustrated in Frank Holland, “How 57 Artists View Themselves,” Chicago Sun-Times, 2/12/1956, sec. 2, p.5; the Chicago American showed four of the self-portraits, including Weisenborn’s, with photographs of each artist: “Artists Make All Pictures Lovely—Except Own,” Chicago American, 3/30/1956 in Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1452; and Eleanor Jewett, “Portraits of Artists Are Amusing,” Chicago Tribune, 2/12/1956, part 7, p.8.

[356]Frank Holland, “Stunning Progressive Works Shown Here,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8/12/1956, sec. 2, p.5. The Mirror is illustrated. A related painting, with an altered background, is known as Portrait of Helen Brown; Helen Brown was a student of Weisenborn’s. Telephone interview Lloyd C. Engelbrecht with West Weisenborn, 7/30/1998. This variant, thirty-six by forty-eight inches, was offered for sale by the Papillon Gallery, Los Angeles, via the Internet, in January 1999, with a date of 1956 and a slightly erroneous title, Portrait of Martha Brown. It is possible The Mirror is the same painting by a different title.

[357]Frank Holland, “Berke Ranked Tops in Jewish Club Show,” Chicago Sun-Times, 2/26/1954, sec. 2, p.6.

[358]Edith Weigle, “Tell Winners in Free-For-All Pier Art Show,” Chicago Tribune, 2/12/1957, part 1, p.3. Weisenborn was photographed showing his prize-winning painting. Another of his paintings shown was reproduced in: Edith Weigle, “Modern Art for You, the Jury,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, 2/17/1957, p.24.

[359]Op. cit., Weigle, “Tell Winners,” part 1, p.3.

[360]Edward Pell, “Chicago Artists Abroad Win French Critics’ Praise,” Chicago American, 9/7/1958, p.31. Weisenborn’s Figures in Space was illustrated.

[361]Edith Weigle, “The Wonderful World of Art,” Chicago Tribune, 11/3/1957, part 7, p.2. See also: Edith Weigle, “Modernist Has Exhibit of 60 Works,” Chicago Tribune, 11/8/1957, part 2, p.3; and caption for Portrait of a Young Girl, The Booster, 11/13/1957. The Booster may be hard to find; the item cited is on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1456.

[362]“Art: the Work of Rudolph Weisenborn,” Inland Architect, January, 1958, pp.6-[7]; Metropolitan Blues (location unknown) was illustrated on p.6.

[363]Op. cit., Rosenstone Art Gallery, Bernard Horwich Center, Rudolph Weisenborn, a Retrospective, unpaged; see also: Op. cit., Barry, Chicago Tribune Magazine, 11/7/1965, pp.68-69.

[364]“The Father of Abstract Art,” Northtown News, 10/27/1965, page number not available, but reproduced on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1463.

[365]Op. cit., Northtown News, 10/27/1965.

[366]Franz Schulze, “Flora, Fauna, Weisenborn,” source not determined, December, 1965; a copy of a clipping is on Archives of American Art microfilm reel 856, frame 1470.

[367]A copy is in the Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago, pamphlet box P-05500.

[368]Oral history of Rudolph Weisenborn, recorded May 16, 1997, by West Weisenborn.

[369]Reproduced in a folder announcing a memorial retrospective exhibition of Weisenborn’s works at the Gilman Galleries, 277 East Ontario Street, Chicago, May 3 to June 30, 1974. The works are unlocated.

[370]Op. cit., Lefkovitz, A Passion for Life, pp.42-43.

[371]Op. cit., Kuh, “Chicago’s New Collectors,” p.5.

[372]Op. cit., Barker, Currents of Expansion: Painting in the Midwest, pp. 146-147, 160, 176 and 188. Shown was The Chicagoan (1929), illustrated on pp.46-147.

[373]A copy of the film is in the Harold Washington Library.

[374]Chicago Sun-Times, “TV Prevue,” 5/25/1980, p.52.

[375]Printed announcement of the Chautauqua Chicago Series at Harold Washington Library Center, dated 4/29/1993; a copy is in the IHAP files.

[376]Op. cit., Engelbrecht, p. 204.