Feature image: ENCHAINED ACTION (1906) by ARISTIDE MAILLOL (1861-1944)., The Art Institute of Chicago. August 2015. Author’s photograph.
A curated space offering deep dives into the history, composition, and story of individual artworks—whether a single piece, multi-part installation, or composite creation.
A Portrait of Artistic Suffering: Manet’s Monumental “Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers” (1865) at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Feature image: Édouard Manet, Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers, 1865, oil on canvas, 190.8 × 148.3 cm (74 7/8 × 58 3/8 in.), transforms a traditional Passion scene into a striking meditation on artistic identity and public judgment. Rather than emphasizing spiritual transcendence, Manet presents Christ with an unsettling immediacy, drawing parallels between the mocked…
At the St. Louis Museum, George Caleb Bingham’s Stump Speaking Reveals the Missouri Artist-Politician’s Complex and Satirical Vision of Mid-19th-Century Frontier Democracy.
FEATURE IMAGE: George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), Stump Speaking, 1854, oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 58 in. (108 x 147.3 cm), St. Louis Museum of Art. The painting begun by Bingham in November 1853 was completed in February 1854 in Philadelphia. Stump Speaking is one of three paintings in a series representing to a national…
At the Art Institute of Chicago, Fernand Lungren’s The Café (1882/84) Captures the Fashion, Light, and Energy of Modern Paris.
FEATURE Image: Fernand Harvey Lungren (1857-1932), The Café, 1882/84, oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago. 9/2014. Fernand Lungren, c. 1900. The painting, The Café, is not simply a café interior. It is a study of modern Parisian life in the early electric age, where fashion, urban leisure, technology, and observation converge. In Lungren’s exposure…
At the Milwaukee Art Museum, Oskar Kokoschka’s Lady in Red (1911) Reveals the Fiercely Independent Vision of a Young Modernist
Feature Image: Oskar Kokoschka (Austrian, 1886-1980), Lady in Red (Dame in Rot), 1911, oil on canvas, 21 11/16 × 16 in. (55.09 × 40.64 cm), Milwaukee Art Museum. see – Collection | Milwaukee Art Museum – retrieved June 5, 2026. Author’s photograph, 2016. Lady in Red is not merely a portrait but a declaration of…
JOAN MIRÓ’s Chicago (1967/1981): Dadaist Imagination in Monumental Form.
FEATURE image: Joan Miró, Joan Miró’s Chicago (sometimes Miss Chicago), steel reinforced-concrete, colored ceramics, 1967, Brunswick Building Plaza, 69 W. Washington Street, Chicago. Joan Miró’s Chicago is the Spanish artist’s only monumental sculpture. It embodies the artist’s lifelong commitment to Dada-inspired experimentation, independence, and the transformation of ordinary forms into poetic, imaginative symbols. The sculpture…
Monument to Brigadier General Gouverneur K. Warren (1888), Hero of Little Round Top, Gettysburg.
FEATURE image: Brigadier General Gouverneur Kemble Warren (1888) by Karl Gerhardt. Gettysburg National Military Park. Author’s photograph. April 2006. One of Gettysburg’s most famous statues among the park’s many hundreds of monuments, markers and plaques, Gouverneur (his first name, not his title) Kemble Warren (1830-1882) was a civil engineer and U.S Army general from New…
The Worker Statue: Honoring Company 612 and the Lasting Mark of the CCC in Willow Springs.
FEATURE Image: The Worker, Willow Springs, Illinois. June 2018. Author’s photograph 6mb.The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) stands as one of the most successful and far-reaching initiatives of FDR’s New Deal, providing vital economic relief during the Great Depression while leaving a permanent legacy of environmental conservation and infrastructural development that is beautifully commemorated today by The…
Before the Great Emancipator: Leonard Crunelle’s Monument to a Young Captain Lincoln in Dixon, Illinois.
FEATURE image: The large bronze statue was the first prominent public depiction of the 16th U.S. president as a young adult man. June 2017. Author’s photograph. 4.70mb. Capt. A. Lincoln stands watch over the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois. Unveiled in 1930 on the historic grounds of Fort Dixon, Leonard Crunelle’s statue captures a 23-year-old…
Resilience in Steel: How Richard Hunt’s We Will (2005) Reimagines Chicago’s Historic Mantra.
FEATURE Image: Richard Hunt’s monumental welded stainless-steel sculpture We Will serves as a powerful symbol of modern Chicago’s collective resilience, updating the city’s historic “I Will” mantra to reflect a 21st-century spirit of unity and resolve. The sculpture’s flame-like forms evoke the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire of 1871, showing that Chicagoans…
Curves in a City of Grids: How Calder’s Flamingo (1974) Transformed Chicago’s Federal Center.
FEATURE Image: Alexander Calder’s Flamingo successfully transforms Chicago’s Federal Center Plaza by humanizing, energizing, and completing Mies van der Rohe’s austere modernist architectural ensemble through color, scale, movement, and sculptural form. Author’s photograph. June 2022. 7.73 mb Alexander Calder’s Flamingo was unveiled on October 25, 1974, in a dedication ceremony with the artist. Alongside Picasso and…
Bronze Portals of Faith: Biagio Governali’s Rosary Doors (2004) in Chicago.
FEATURE IMAGE: CENTRAL Bronze Door: Sorrowful Mysteries panel (detail), The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, Chicago. December 2013. 1.55 mb. Author’s photograph. The doors visually narrate all twenty mysteries of the Rosary. INTRODUCTION. Biagio Governali’s bronze doors at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii transform a church entrance into a visual and spiritual…
UNITED STATES. My Art Photography: JACOB WATTS (b., American), Moose Bubblegum Bubble, 2014, 33 E. Congress (South Wall), Chicago, Illinois.
Jacob Watts is a photographer and visual storyteller based in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of Oswego (Illinois) High School (class of 2008), Watts received his B.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago in 2012. The photo-illustration of a moose blowing bubblegum hangs on a blue wall in the South Loop of Downtown Chicago at a size of…
UNITED STATES. My Art Photography: RUTH AIZUSS MIGDAL (b. 1932, American), Here, 2012, Chicago, Illinois.
Ruth Aizuss Migdal was born in Chicago. The artist was educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.F.A.) and the University of Illinois at Urbana (M.F.A). Migdal was awarded an honorary doctorate from U of I, her alma mater, in 2019. Classically educated and trained in painting and printmaking, initially she created…
Beautifying the Blues on Chicago’s State Street: Eduardo Kobra, Muddy Waters, and the Legacy of Chess Records.
FEATURE image: Muddy Waters, King of the Chicago Blues by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra. Located at 17 N. State Street in Downtown Chicago, the 10-story mural of Muddy Waters serves as a monumental public tribute that both beautifies the Loop and permanently honors the foundational legacy of Black electric blues music in the city. Painted…
UNITED STATES. My Art Photography: BOB MANGOLD (b. 1930, American), Anemotive Kinetic, Rockford, Illinois.
As a kinetic (movement) artist, Mangold’s sculptures explore concepts of space and motion. In 1962, Mangold began his Anemotive series of spherical, wind-propelled kinetic sculptures. As with this art installation in Rockford, Anemotive Kinetic, the anemotives are characterized by cup-like shapes mounted on arms which allow for motion in nature. text&photo:
UNITED STATES. My Art Photography: JERRY PEART (b. 1948, American), Wildflower, Rockford, Illinois.
Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens along the Rock River in Rockford, Illinois. opened in October 2011. It offers a main exhibition house, greenhouses, classrooms, a roof garden, a lagoon, walking trails, outdoor gardens, and more. The 20-foot painted aluminum sculpture called Wildflower in a fountain setting stands near the entrance of the conservatory & gardens. Jerry…
Gift to the People: The Chicago Picasso (1967) and Chicago’s Civic Identity.
FEATURE image: The Chicago Picasso in Daley Plaza. July 2015. Author’s photograph. Picasso’s 1967 gift transformed Chicago’s cultural identity by bringing monumental modern art into everyday public life. Despite initial controversy, the important sculpture helped establish a lasting tradition of public art in the city and across America. Chicago’s Picasso in Daley Plaza. July 2015.…
Myth, Memory, and Route 66: Marion Kryczka’s Tribute Murals (2007) and the Automotive Heritage of Joliet, Illinois.
FEATURE image: Chevy Dealership: A Tribute to Route 66, 2007, Downtown Joliet, Illinois. Marion Kryczka’s tribute mural on the former Route 66 at 396 N. Chicago Street uses public art to preserve and interpret Joliet’s local history by connecting three intertwined themes: the rise of the automobile culture, the significance of Route 66, and the…
FRANCE. My Art Photography: MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985, Belarusian-French), Four Seasons, 1974, Chase Tower Plaza, Chicago, Illinois.
Feature Image: East side (detail), Marc Chagall, Four Seasons, 1972, Chase Tower Plaza, Chicago. May 2014. 7.44 mb 92%. Author’s photograph. Composed of thousands of inlaid chips in over 250 colors, The Four Seasons (1972) mosaic in Chase Tower Plaza, Chicago, by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) portrays scenes of Chicago. It features Chagall’s modernist art informed…
In Chicago’s Humboldt Park: Gamaliel Ramirez’s Sea of Flags (2004), Puerto Rican Identity, Memory, and Pride.
FEATURE Image: Gamaliel Ramirez’s Sea of Flags (2004) In Chicago’ Humboldt Park uses public art to celebrate Puerto Rican cultural identity while highlighting the enduring and unresolved political and historical ties between Puerto Rico and the United States. July 2015. Author’s photograph. What the mural depicts The mural entitled Sea of Flags depicts Fiesta Boricua…
The Soldier Who Never Stops Advancing: John Paulding’s Doughboy (1921) and the Memory of World War I.
FEATURE image: Over the Top to Victory (“Doughboy”), 1921, John Paulding, Memorial Park, Wheaton, Illinois. John Paulding’s 1921 Over the Top to Victory transforms the image of the American doughboy into a permanent public memorial that keeps the service and sacrifice of World War I veterans alive for succeeding generations. May 2018. Author’s photograph. All…
Form, Force, and Revolution: Maillol’s Enchained Action (1906) and Its Hidden Socialist History at the Art Institute of Chicago.
N.B. When this post was published in July 2016, Aristide Maillol’s Enchained Action — a torso cast in bronze and created in 1905 in France — enjoyed a lengthy time on the Women’s Board Grand Staircase at the Chicago art museum. In 2017 the torso was removed by museum curators and placed in an undisclosed…
Mysterious she-wolf figure, OVIRI (SAVAGE), exhibited in Paris in 1895 by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).
FEATURE image: Paul Gauguin, Oviri (Savage),1894, stone, 75 x 19 x 27 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Public Domain. By John P. Walsh By 1887 French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) had created over 50 ceramic sculptures and carved several decorative panels. So it may be expected that during his interlude in Paris between 1893 and 1895 that…
Art of Connoisseurship, or How THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S TITIAN PAINTING was revealed to be artwork by an “Imitator.”
FEATURE image: Allegory of Venus and Cupid, c. 1600, Imitator of Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, Italian, c. 1485/90-1576), oil on canvas, 51 1/8 x 61 1/8 in. (129.9 x 155.3 cm). Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester Collection, 1943.90. By John P. Walsh The pleasant if heavily-restored late 16th century allegorical painting in the collection of…
Made in 1990, this monumental Cor-Ten steel sculpture by Ferdinand Rebechini (American, 1923-2003) portrays a Kaskaskia guide leading Fr. Jacques Marquette, S.J., and Louis Jolliet across the Chicago Portage during their historic 1673 expedition.
FEATURE image: Kaskaskia tribe member leads Fr. Jacques Marquette, S.J. and Louis Jolliet through the Chicago Portage, 1673. Cor-10 steel, Ferdinand Rebechini (1923-2003), The Chicago Portage National Historic Site, Lyons, Illinois, 1990. Author’s photograph taken in November 2012. The Chicago Portage, which made Chicago’s founding and thriving possible, is a U.S. Department of Interior National…
