FEATURE Image: August 2024. Oakbrook, IL. 5.83 mb 7758 (1).
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
“Morning bread delivery waiting outside Berto’s, the storefront still closed but already in motion for the day.”
“Press crews converge as the speaker briefs the cameras, the choreography of local news unfolding in real time.”
“Billboard light spills over the crosswalk as the pair cuts through the frame, a flash of blue shoes and city rhythm.”
FEATURE image: June 2022. Chicago. 2.11mb
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
Liberty Bank’s origin dates back to 1898 when parishioners of All Saints Polish National Catholic Church on Chicago’s North Side (2392 N. Milwaukee Avenue) came together to form a mutual savings institution committed to “neighbors helping neighbors.”
All photographs & text by John P. Walsh.
September 2001. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 70% Progress of Women was completed by artists Larissa Preston Danowitz and Cesar Viveros and collaborators in 2001. At 1307 Locust Street the mural shows work of the New Century Guild to promote women in the workforce. At the top of the mural is the visage of Eliza Turner (1826-1903) who founded the New Century Guild in 1882 and lived in Philadelphia.
October 2003. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The Renoir-inspired outdoor sculpture (“Dance at Bougival,” 1883, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts) was in conjunction with that year’s exhibition called “The Impressionist Tradition in America.” Closed in 2014, the former museum is today the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
November 2017. Crown Fountain, Jaume Plensa [Krueck + Sexton Architects], Millennium Park, Chicago. 368kb 35%
October 2015. Chicago. 4.48 mb
June 2018 Chicago. 4.65 mb
July 2015. Chicago. 4.32 mb
May 2014. Chicago. 4.72 mb
June 2022. Chicago. 7.89 mb 86%
December 2013. Chicago. 6.79 mb
June 2022. Chicago (Rogers Park). 4.20 mb
June 2022. Chicago. 7.66 mb 84%
June 2022. Chicago 11.71 mb
June 2022. Chicago 2.38 mb 50%
August 2015. Chicago. 7.92 mb 96%
August 2018. Chicago. 7.29 mb
August 2015. Chicago. 5.26 mb
October 2016. Chicago. Daniel Buren (b. 1938), Attrape-soleil, 2013. 4.49 mb.
Featured on the exterior wall of a building in the Englewood/Morgan Park area located on the South Side of Chicago, three prominent civil rights figures and community leaders are memorialized in this mural created in 2020. Emmett Till (1941–1955) is A 14-year-old Chicago youth whose brutal lynching in Mississippi became a primary catalyst for the American Civil Rights Movement; Breonna Taylor (1993–2020) is a 26-year-old emergency room technician who was fatally shot by police officers in her Louisville, Kentucky home. And Dr. Phoebe Elaine Slaughter-Lenear (1965–2020) is a respected local Chicago educator, humanitarian, and community leader. Created in the midst of the nationwide civil rights protests that summer, the mural was painted as a collaboration by Chicago-based visual artists GNEE ART (@gneeink45) and Calin Bruett, professionally known as JEFF K%NZ (pronounced “Jeff Koonz”).
August 2021. Chicago. 7.23 mb 99%
2021. Chicago. 7.82 mb 90%
May 2021. Chicago. Cloud Gate (“The Bean”), 2006, Anish Kapoor, Millennium Park. 7.97mb 97%
July 2015. Chicago. 7.10 mb
March 2014. Melrose Park, IL. 4.06mb
April 2013. Chicago. 1.07 mb 40%
January 2024. Downers Grove, IL 7.75 mb 97%
September 2015. Chicago. 5.82 mb
April 2013. Chicago (Pilsen). 3.46mb
April 2013. Chicago (Pilsen). 4.96mb
April 2013. Chicago (Pilsen). 4.63mb
August 2024. Chicago. 87% 7.75 mb _1500 (1)
November 2017. Chicago. Opened in July 2004, Crown Fountain in Millennium Park was designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects. 66% 7.91 mb DSC_3423
April 2013. Chicago Pilsen. 4.89mb102_0165 (1)
July 2015. Chicago 5.66mb DSC_0083 (1)
December 2015. Chicago (State Street). 5.13mb DSCN1936 (1)
May 2016. Chicago. 4.97mb DSCN2708 (1)
May 2013. Chicago (Pilsen) 4.37mb 102_0387 (1)
FEATURE image: The BLM march took place along Main Street in Downers Grove, Illinois, on Sunday, June 7, 2020.
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
FEATURE Image: November 2017. Michigan-based Saints basketball team visiting in downtown Chicago.
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
The Logan Theatre at 2646 N. Milwaukee in Chicago opened in November 1915 as The Paramount Theatre. It was operated by Lubliner & Trinz that started operating movie theaters in Chicago around 1914. At their peak, Lubliner & Trinz operated about nineteen theaters and leased or built about 36 theaters until 1934. The Paramount had seating for 988 in orchestra level and was equipped with a Weickhardt organ, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was renamed the Logan Theatre in 1929 when it was taken over by Essaness, a Chicago-based movie theater chain. The company owned and operated 33 theaters in the Chicago area, including the Pantheon and Biograph theaters. see – Lubliner & Trinz Theater History – The Clark Theater ; Logan Theatre in Chicago, IL – Cinema Treasures – retrieved January 18, 2026.
The Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) was a historic men’s club and athletic team based in Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1890 and closed in 2007. The 1893 building was designed by prolific architect Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931). Transformed into the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, it opened as a boutique hotel, welcoming the public and preserving its rich history.
Van Buren Street Station is a commuter rail station in downtown Chicago that serves the Metra Electric Line to University Park, Blue Island, and South Chicago neighborhood and the South Shore Line to Gary and South Bend, Indiana.
FEATURE image: July 2015. Chicago. 134 S Wabash Ave, Chicago 60603. According to their website, Miller’s Pub was established as a bar in 1935 which was bought in 1950 by Pete, Nick and Jimmy Gallios, three brothers of Greek descent. A fourth brother, Vannie, worked his way into a stake in the business in 1953. Miller’s Pub thrived in the same location until 1989 when they moved around the corner into another of their restaurants they owned located at 134 S. Wabash. Over the years entertainers, politicians and sports figures have patronized Miller’s Pub in Chicago’s Loop including Chicago mayors, Jimmy Durante, Marilyn Monroe, Bill Veeck, Harry Caray, Tony Bennett and Bob Fosse’s dancers who came for an after-show nightcap. 3.68 mb
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
The owner came to the US from Italy through Ellis Island in 1938. The family business, Domino’s Pastries, was founded in this location in Chicago in 1952. Their loyal customer base is witnessed when the same couples who ordered their wedding cakes at Domino’s ordered many years later their anniversary cakes.
FEATURE image: May 2015. Michigan Avenue Main Lobby. The Art Institute of Chicago. 4.57mb DSC_0366 (1)
Photographs and Text by John P. Walsh.
Michigan Avenue entrance of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Sculpture Court, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Modern Wing, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Mao, 1972, Acrylic, silkscreen ink, and pencil on linen, 448.3 × 346.7 cm (176 1/2 × 136 1/2 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
The Chauncey McCormick Gallery refers to exhibition space (often featuring Asian and European decorative arts) at the Art Institute of Chicago named after Chauncey Brooks McCormick (1884–1954), a prominent Chicago businessman, philanthropist, and president of the museum from 1944 until his death
Robert Irwin (1928-2023), Untitled, Acrylic lacquer on cast acrylic disk, 1969. The Art Institute of Chicago. Irwin was a pioneering figure in California Light and Space art.
The exhibition “The Artist and the Poet” at the Art Institute of Chicago ran from February 1 to June 2, 2013, exploring the dialogue between visual art and literature through works on paper, prints, and illustrations. It was presented in the Jean and Steven Goldman Prints and Drawings Galleries (Galleries 124–127), located on the first floor of the museum’s historic Ryerson and Burnham Libraries building.
Modern wing, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Frances Stark (1967-) from Intimism, 2015. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Carl Milles (1875-1955), Triton Fountain, 1926, bronze, Alexander McKinlock Memorial Court, The Art Institute of Chicago. Swedish sculptor Carl Milles (1875-1955) studied in Paris from 1897 to 1904, working in the studio of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Yet Milles departed from the prevailing naturalism that dominated sculpture in the Belle Époque era, and embraced ideas and forms that reflected the artist’s independent spirit, his knowledge and appreciation of classical and Gothic sculpture, and his Nordic roots.
Speaking of his fountain at the Art Institute of Chicago, Milles observed: “The great classicists knew that it was impossible to reproduce the appearance of flesh in marble, and they set themselves to create forms of pure beauty that would merely suggest and symbolize the living creature, and then to invest those forms with a meaning that mankind would feel intuitively to be universal and significant. This is what I have tried to do.”
Charles Ray (1953-), Young Man, 2012, Solid Stainless Steel.
Lorado Taft (1860-1936), Fountain of the Great Lakes, 1913. South Garden. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Flying Dragon, 1975, Steel plate and paint, 365 × 579 × 335 cm (120 × 228 × 132 in.), North Garden, The Art Institute of Chicago. 20th Century. American. Sculpture. Modernism.
Henry Moore (1898-1986), Large Interior Form, bronze (ed. of 6), 1953/4, 16 ft. 9 in., North Garden, The Art Institute of Chicago. Henry Moore’s 16-foot sculpture was made when the 84-year-old British artist was concerned with the construction of three-dimensional space, internal forms within solid volumes, and placing his work in a natural setting. Moore had worked primarily in stone but as these formal concerns emerged, he shifted to modeling and bronze casting. Large Interior Form explores mass and void as well as gravity and growth within a nature-inspired artist-created form.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Nymph—Central Figure for the Three Graces, 1930, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. Acquired by the museum in 1966, photographs show that the statue stood in an open location by a garden pool at the museum. In 1991 following a whirlwind of euphoria associated with the successful completion of Operation Desert Storm, a victory celebration at the Mall in June of that year involved hovering military jets and helicopters. Their downdraft sent gravel footpath debris flying in the air that scratched and cracked several statues in the sculpture garden. Though none appeared to sustain damage beyond some repair, the Nymph—Central Figure for the Three Graces suffered the most damage as the nude female statue had pitted indentations on her backside. In 2010 when this photograph was taken, the sculpture was located in front of a protective garden wall. See- https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-06-12-1991163158-story.html 20th Century. France. Sculpture. Modernism.
Indian and Islamic Art.
Frédéric Bazille, Self-portrait, 1865/6. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Clodion (1738-1814). The See-Saw. 1775. Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art.
Michel Anguier (1612-1686), Amphitrite, marble, 1684. Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art.
Venus, Roman, Asia Minor, marble, c.165 CE, Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art.
Bill Reid (1920-1998), Birth of the World or The Raven and the First Men/Humans, yellow cedar, 1980. Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia.
“The Café-Concert,” Édouard Manet, c. 1879. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Next to it is Portrait of Estelle Balfour by Edgar Degas, c. 1863-65, oil on canvas mounted on panel, also at The Walters.
From right to left: Kees van Dongen (1877-1968), Woman with Cat, 1908, and Quai, Venice, 1921; Gabriele Münter (1877-1962), Portrait Young Woman, 1909. Milwaukee Art Museum.
Mikazuki (male deity) Noh Mask, cypress wood, brass, colors. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919): Chrysanthemums, 1881/2; Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg), 1879; Fruits of the Midi, 1881; Seascape, 1879; Lucie Berard (Child in White), 1883. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Woman in a Garden, 1882/3, The Art Institute of Chicago.
William Glackens (1870-1938), The Dressing Table, c.1922, oil on canvas. Snite Museum of Art, Nore Dame University, South Bend, Indiana.
Gabriele Münter (1877-1962): Kirche von Reidhausen, oil on canvas board, 1908 and Mädchen mit Puppe, oil on cardboard, 1908/9. August Macke (1887-1914), Geraniums Before Blue Mountain, oil on canvas, 1911. Milwaukee Art Museum.
Above and below: Bodhisattva; Diety; Buddha. 4th-6th Centuries. Afghanistan/Pakistan. Stucco. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Charles Collins (1680-1744), Still Life with Game, 1741. Private Collection. 18th Century. Ireland.
James C. Timbrell (1807-1850), Carolan the Irish Bard, c. 1844, oil on canvas. Private collection. 19th Century. Ireland.
John Kelly, wire-strung Bunworth harp, 1734, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Robert Fagan (c. 1761-1816), Portrait of Lady as Hibernia, c. 1798. Private collection. The Bunworth harp is inscribed: “made by Iohn Kelly for the Revd Charles Bworth Baltdaniel 1734″. The wire-string harp was made by Catholic instrument maker John Kelly for the Reverend Charles Bunworth, also of Baltdaniel, who was the Protestant rector of Buttevant, County Cork. The many aspects of the instrument—from soundbox, harmonic curve, fore-pillar, tuning pegs, and ornamentation and color— invite interest. Though it may be the female head at the top of the harmonic curve that at first most intrigues. (see – https://harp.fandom.com/wiki/Bunworth_Harp and http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/harpmakers/ – both retrieved October 14, 2021). Robert Fagan was an Irish painter who was born in London but spent most of his artistic career in Rome and Sicily (Fagan first arrived into Italy in 1781). Though an expatriate, Fagan’s oil on canvas depicts a woman who represents Ireland careessing the strings of the harp, the country’s national instrument and symbol. Seated next to an Irish wolfhound, she holds a scroll that reads: “Ireland Forever” (“Erin go bragh“). 18th century. Ireland.
Includes (below) John Dodd, of Swallowfield, Berkshire, 1739, John Vanderbank (1694 – 1739) and (above) Portrait of a Woman, Probably Elizabeth Aislabie, of Studley Royal, Yorkshire, c. 1749, Thomas Hudson (1701-1779), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.
Loutrophoros (Bath water vase), 4th Century BCE. Greece. Italy (Apulia). Terracotta. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Black-figure painting was the primary technique for decorating Greek vases for over 200 years. The technique started in Corinth and expanded east to Athens in the mid first millennium BCE (700- 500 BCE). In this time period ancient Corinth was, with almost 100,000 people, one of the largest cities of Greece. In 146 BCE the Romans besieged, captured and demolished Corinth. The site lay deserted for almost 100 years until the Romans rebuilt it as a new city populated with around 50,000 Romans, Greeks and Jews.
Oil Jar, 450 BCE, Athens, Greece, terracotta. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1898), Paris Street; A Rainy Day (“Rue de Paris, Temps de pluie”), 1877. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921). Winged Figure, 1889, oil on canvas. 130.8 × 95.9 cm (51 1/2 × 37 3/4 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), The Artist in his Studio, c. 1865-66, oil on boarded mounted on panel, 62 × 46.5 cm (24 7/16 × 18 5/16 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Eternal Springtime, 1884. Bronze. Fonderie Alexis Rudier, Paris (20th century). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Spanish dance (c.1883), Arabesque (c.1885), and Woman seated in an armchair, (c.1901), bronze (cast later). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Adam, 1881. Bronze. The Art Institute of Chicago.
Headdresses. 19th/20th Century. Africa. The Art Institute of Chicago. The headdresses at the right and at the left are Gelede headdresses. The headdress in the middle is perhaps a Gelde or Efe headdress. The headdress at the left is made of wood and the oldest of the headdresses. It was made in Nigeria or Benin by the Yoruba community in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Gelede headdresses often portray women. The headdresses in the center and at right depict women. One is wearing a head tie and the other is showing a woman with a plaited hairstyle. These were made in Nigeria by the Yoruba community in the early 20th century. The Gelede festival of the Yoruba community in western Africa is a public spectacle which uses colorful masks that combines art and ritual dance to educate, entertain and inspire worship. Gelede includes the celebration of “Mothers,” a grouping that includes female ancestors and deities as well as the elderly women of the community whose power and spiritual capacity in society is convoked. The Efe is a nighttime public performance held the day before the Gelede.
Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874), African Chief, 1870, oil on canvas, 41 × 32.9 cm (16 1/8 × 12 15/16 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago. African Chief in The Art Institute of Chicago was recently exhibited in a 2017-2018 monographic retrospective at the Prado in Madrid. The show, simply entitled “Fortuny (1838-1874),” reflected the Prado’s holdings of many of this artist’s masterpieces. The Prado’s collection is due to their own acquisitions but mainly the generous bequests of the artist’s oils, watercolors, and drawings by late 19th century Mexican collector Ramón de Errazu (1840-1904) as well as the painter’s son, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. Fortuny’s artwork is often Orientalist in style that reflects the many trips he made to North Africa. In his career, Fortuny was noted for his precision of anatomy and archaeological scrupulousness though African Chief tends to the modern broken brush style for which the Spanish artist was prescient following his many trips to Paris. 19th century. Spain. Romanticism.
Left to right: Kramer Brothers Company (Dayton, Ohio), Settee, c. 1905/25; Cecilia Beaux (American, 1855-1942), Dorothea and Francesca, 1898, oil on canvas; Daniel Chester French (American, 1855- 1931), Truth, 1900, plaster.
Above and next three below: Fragments, Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) and Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), The Art Institute of Chicago. 19th Century. American. Modernism.
With the arm detail of Rodin’s bronze Adam (1881), the landing of the Grand Staircase at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Bisa Butler (1973-), The Safety Patrol, 2018, by Bisa Butler. Cotton, wool, and chiffon; appliquéd and quilted. The Safety Patrol considers the potential of a group of children as future caretakers of the world led by a boy in a sash with outstretched arms whose duty it is to protect the others. Bisa Butler uses the technique of appliqué quilt making to create her work. For the figures, the artist cuts, layers, and pins together fabrics and arranges them on the ground fabric. This comprises the quilt top. Between this quilt top and a backing fabric is a layer of fiber “batting” or stuffing. These layers are stitched to form the quilt with the thread lines part of the structure, texture and details of the image. Butler seeks to use fabric colors and patterns to contribute to the quilt’s subject and narrative. 21st Century. American.
Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808), The Fountains, 1787, oil on canvas, 255.3 × 221.2 cm (100 1/2 × 88 1/8 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Joseph Wilson (d. 1800), Adephi Club – Belfast, oil on canvas, 1783.
The State Ballroom, Saint Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle, oil on wood, c. 1845, signed and inscribed: F. J. Davis/Dublin. St Patrick’s Hall had long been a key location for Ireland’s political, military and social elite to gather (B. Rooney, Creating History, Stories of Ireland in Art, 2016, p.179). These dance proceedings are overseen by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his wife visible at the end of the hall. The 1840s was a period of fashion indulgence. The social ball with attendees in sumptuous costume took place during the period of the Irish famine (1845-1849) where approximately one million people died. Another one million or more emigrated out of the country at the same time, many to the United States. Court dress for gentleman allowed personal expression in fabric and style for the waistcoat. Military officers and political office holders wore court uniforms indicating their position and rank. For ladies, to signal their marital situation, unmarried women wore jewelry and fresh flowers in their hair. Conventionally-minded single ladies added two ostrich feathers behind one ear. Matrons sported a third ostrich feather in their hair and wore lace ribbons.
El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) (1541-1614), Saint Francis Kneeling in Meditation, c. 1595, oil on canvas. 92 × 74 cm (36 3/16 × 24 1/8 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), Boats at Rest, c. 1895, oil on canvas, 66 × 91.4 cm (26 × 36 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago.
Pompeo Batoni (Italian, 1708-1787), Allegory of Peace and War, 1776, oil on canvas, 53 1/2 × 39 in. The Art Institute of Chicago. 5.73 mb Pompeo Batoni was a leading 18th-century Roman painter. The artist was known for his portraits and commissioned large format historical and religious paintings. The painting entitled “Allegory of Peace and War” represented the mythological figure of the god Mars being restrained by a semi-nude embodiment of peace. Peace lays her hand on War’s sword and bears to him an olive branch. The painting was the result of Batoni’s own invention – no one commissioned this artwork – and it stayed in the artist’s studio until at least the early 1780s.
Statue of Aphrodite, called Venus de Milo because it was found on the Greek Island of Milos in the Aegean Sea. It dates from around 150 B.C. In the Louvre in Paris, the Venus de Milo is one of the most famous statues in the world. Its soft, sensual handling of the marble was characteristic of the late Hellenistic period. She is monumental – the topless, armless Venus de Milo stands, independent of her base and pedestal, six feet five inches in height. In the course of the second half of the 19th century, the Venus de Milo became a favorite statue of Parisians and its visitors. It was around 1875 that it was moved away from the wall which it stood against and placed in the middle of a 17th century room so that it could be viewed completely around. It was accorded this baroque effect first used at Versailles at the start of the 18th century so to isolate monumental sculpture for display to produce maximum impact and enjoyment of the artwork. SOURCES: Masterpieces of the Louvre, Marcel Brion, NY: Abrams; Creators Collectors and Connoisseurs, Niels Von Holst, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
Fragment of a Funerary Monument, c. 330 BCE Greek; Athens, 152.4 × 111.8 × 33 cm (60 × 44 × 13 in.), The Art Institute of Chicago. see- https://www.artic.edu/artworks/55887/fragment-of-a-funerary-naiskos-monument-in-the-shape-of-a-temple – retrieved March 31, 2025. This is one of the fashionable burial markers, whether of Greek or Roman families, encountered by the public in ancient times. Made in all sorts of shapes and sizes, this large stone monument from the 4th century BCE shows three figures carved in very high relief so much so that they are nearly in the round. The two male figures’ gestures of parting indicate that it is a funerary scene. The standing man is likely the person who has died and this funerary marker depicts his sharing a final farewell with loved ones – their relationship, obviously close, after 2500 years, completely unknown.
Cristoforo Stati (Italian, 1556–1619). Samson and the Lion, 1604-1607, marble, 210 × 112 × 84 cm (82 11/16 × 44 1/8 × 33 1/8 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago. see – https://www.artic.edu/artworks/146875/samson-and-the-lion – retrieved April 1, 2025. Stati studied in Florence under Giambologna (1529-1608). In 1601, Tuscany’s archduke, Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1549-1609), sent a sculpture of Samson by Giambologna to the palace of Spain’s prime minister in Valladolid as a gift. Later, Stati’s sculpture of Samson and the Lion was also sent to Spain as a complementary gift and installed in Madrid. The work was in a Swiss private collection before it was acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago in 1996.
Head of Hercules. Roman, First Century CE. The Art Institute of Chicago. The Romans adapted the stories of Hercules’ superhuman feats of strength from the Greeks. The earlier Greeks viewed him as a demigod, the later Romans saw him as one of their hero figures.
Head of Pierre de Wissant (1889) by Auguste Rodin, part of The Burghers of Calais (1884–89) in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, originates from the larger sculptural ensemble commemorating the six citizens of Calais who offered themselves as hostages to the English during the Hundred Years’ War. When displayed independently, the head emphasizes Rodin’s exploration of psychological intensity and human vulnerability. The sculpture conveys a moment of profound emotional anguish: the downward gaze, deeply furrowed brow, and partially opened mouth collectively articulate a state of acute despair and inner turmoil. Through these expressive distortions, Rodin captures not only the historical gravity of the subject’s sacrifice but also the universal experience of psychological suffering.
Crèche, mid-18th century, Naples, Italy. Details of daily life are connected to the biblical narrative of the Nativity of Jesus Christ.
The mid-18th century Neapolitan Crèche invites viewers to witness the miraculous among the mundane. The Art Institute of Chicago. see – Neapolitan Crèche | The Art Institute of Chicago – retrieved December 14, 2025.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), A Burgher of Calais (Jean d’Aire), modelled 1889, plaster, 82×26 in. The figure was exhibited in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and entered the Art Institute’s collection that same year. The monument includes six individualized figures on a heroic scale and was commissioned in France in 1884. Completed in 1889 by Rodin the monument was installed in Calais’s town hall square in 1895. Rodin depicts Jean d’Aire, one of the town fathers, in sackcloth with the keys of the city, surrendering to the English during the Hundred Years War, in exchange for their lifting a nearly year-long siege that led to the starvation of the city’s inhabitants.. see – Monument to The Burghers of Calais | Musée Rodin – retrieved December 15, 2025.
Exhibition Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination (October 4, 2025- January 5, 2026). Over 85 works of major artists including Odilon Redon, Paul Gauguin, and Edvard Munch, drawn from the Museum’s collection of drawings and prints exploring the late 19th century pan-European Symbolist movement of art, literature and theatre.see – Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination | The Art Institute of Chicago – retrieved December 16, 2025.
Greyed Rainbow, 1953, Jackson Pollock, oil on linen, 182.9 × 244.2 cm (72 1/16 × 96 3/16 in.) and Streetcar, 1951, Alexander Calder, Brass, sheet metal, rod, wire, and paint, 9’8″ long, Art Institute of Chicago. See – Streetcar (1951) | Calder Foundation – retrieved Jan. 29, 2026 and Greyed Rainbow | The Art Institute of Chicago – retrieved Jan. 29, 2016.
In a stellar cinematic year defined by Gladiator, Traffic, Almost Famous, and Erin Brockovich, Marcia Gay Harden triumphed at the Academy Awards, winning Best Supporting Actress for her riveting performance in Pollock. Harden portrayed Lee Krasner (1908–1984), the pioneering American Abstract Expressionist painter and wife of the biographical film’s brilliant but tortured title character, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956). In addition to her Oscar victory, Harden secured the Best Supporting Actress prize from the New York Film Critics Circle.
Ed Harris pulled impressive double duty on the project, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in what also marked his directorial debut. Behind the camera, Harris assembled a flawless ensemble cast to bring the mid-20th-century modern art world to life. The film features Jennifer Connelly as Ruth Kligman (1930–2010), the American abstract artist and romantic partner to both Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Val Kilmer portrays the iconic Dutch-American abstract expressionist de Kooning (1904–1997) himself, alongside Bud Cort as writer and dealer Howard Putzel (1898–1945).
Rounding out the historic inner circle are Jeffrey Tambor as art critic Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), John Heard as sculptor Tony Smith (1912–1980), Robert Knott as Jackson’s older brother Sande Pollock (1909–1963), Sada Thompson as Pollock’s mother Stella (1875–1958), and Amy Madigan as American art collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979). Much like its Pollock and Krasner’s revolutionary artwork, the film made an indelible splash upon its December 2000 release, remaining a memorably fine and enduring effort. https://youtu.be/z0xiovbDML0?si=XupBbr5gZnhuTVqP – retrieved Jan. 30, 2026.
Thomas Hart Benton, Poker Night (from A Streetcar Named Desire), 1948 (Whitney Museum of American Art), Milwaukee Art Museum. 2.63mb DSC_0054 (1)
Frida Kahlo’s Self‑Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) is a concentrated display of her mature portrait style. Despite its small scale, the composition is intricate, drawing the viewer’s eye across a dense constellation of figures and symbolic objects. At the center sits Kahlo herself, rendered with imaginative realism and surrounded by a menagerie: a monkey on her left, a cat on her right, and a lifeless hummingbird suspended at her throat. Beneath her signature joined eyebrows, she meets the viewer with a calm, unwavering gaze that feels both resolute and quietly intense.
The animals around her animate the scene with contrasting energies. The monkey, distracted, toys with the thorn necklace, while the cat appears tense and ready to strike. The necklace itself encircles her neck and extends downward, its sharp thorns pressing into her half‑length figure. Against this harshness, delicate butterflies—whether real or hair clips—rest motionless in her hair, and above them hover two dragonflies, creatures that in Mexican art often signal a link between nature and the spirit world, messengers of transformation and guardians of the soul.
Within this symbolic framework, the monkey can be read as an emblem of lust or moral temptation, the cat as mysticism and freedom, and the thorn necklace as a sign of bodily suffering and constraint. It also evokes Christ’s crown of thorns, allowing Kahlo to cast herself in a mode of imitatio Christi—a figure bearing pain, betrayal, and emotional anguish after failed relationships. In this light, the butterflies and dragonflies become signs of renewal, hinting at the possibility of resurrection emerging from her world’s suffering.
Finally, hummingbirds (colibríes) are powerful symbols of the warrior spirit, deeply linked to Aztec mythology, embodying courage, vitality, and the fierce renewal of life. By the modern era hummingbirds have also come to represent love, hope, joy, and inner strength while being understood as messengers carrying the presence of departed loved ones returning in brief, luminous visitations.
FEATURE image: (detail) Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene, John 20:11-18.
The Shrine of Christ’s Passion is located on busy U.S. 41 at 10630 Wicker Avenue in St. John, Indiana—just a one-hour drive (about 40 miles) south of downtown Chicago and 90 minutes from the University of Notre Dame. Settled as a pioneer town in 1837, St. John still sits among rolling farm fields despite increasing modern development near the Indiana-Illinois state line.
Situated on the historic Wachter family farm, the 30-acre site features an array of multimedia and interactive attractions. Most visitors come to traverse the half-mile winding concrete pathway, which beautifully showcases over 40 life-sized bronze sculptures that dramatize the biblical Passion of Jesus Christ.
The journey begins inside a well-stocked gift shop before leading directly outdoors to the first dramatic scenes: Jesus at the Last Supper and praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. From there, visitors follow the 14 traditional Stations of the Cross. The trail concludes at the empty tomb, Jesus’s appearance to Mary Magdalene, and a dramatic depiction of the Ascension of the Risen Jesus into Heaven on Mount Olivet.
To build this massive spiritual destination, it required a decade of planning and over $10 million. To enhance the experience, each station features an orientation kiosk. At the push of a button, visitors can listen to a clear, brief English description and short meditation narrated by famed American television journalist Bill Kurtis.
The shrine opened in 2011 and added its latest attraction– namely, a re-creation of the rock-filled path up Mount Sinai to where Moses has received the 10 Commandments –in 2017.
The broad concrete pathway is designed for an easy, meditative progression that fosters quiet reflection and personal discovery. The landscape architecture incorporates formed hills, carefully planted trees, bushes, grasses, and large boulders. This self-contained design effectively blocks out the outside world, beautifully evoking the arid climate and terrain of the Holy Land.
Upon exiting the gift shop—where all proceeds fund the upkeep of the shrine—the transition into the pastoral, biblical setting is immediate. While visitors share the trail with pilgrims from around the world, the layout provides ample space and freedom for a deeply personal, intimate experience.
Open 361 days a year, the prayer trail maintains a quiet, respectful atmosphere year-round. A large and impressive place, there are plenty of places to sit, rest, and take in the realistic sculpture art detailing “the greatest story ever told.” While a quick visit can be completed in about 30 minutes, visitors should allow at least an hour to fully savor the experience.
Beyond the main prayer trail, the grounds feature several other major attractions:
Visitor Information and Hours
The shrine is operated by a non-denominational, nonprofit private foundation, and admission to all attractions is completely free.
The Prayer Trail: Open year-round (weather permitting).
General Hours: Daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Extended Hours: Thursdays until 8:00 p.m.
Sources –
The Shrine of Christ’s Passion Official website – http://shrineofchristspassion.org/
Our Lady of the New Millennium – https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2011-03-04-ct-talk-mary-statue-0305-20110304-story.html
Main Entrance on U.S. 41 at 10630 Wicker Avenue in St. John, Indiana, minutes from the Illinois-Indiana state line. Just 40 minutes from downtown Chicago, there is ample free parking and tour buses are welcome.
The Gift Shoppe.
“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” Jesus said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
“When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.”…Pilate had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”
“Then Pilate handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers took charge of Jesus, who carried his own cross to a location called “The Place of a Skull,” known in Aramaic as Golgotha.”
“He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look around and see.
Is any suffering like my suffering
that was inflicted on me..?”
“They seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.”
“As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.”
“Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.”
“A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”
“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand….”
“They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him.”
“When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.”
“Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.”
“When the centurion who stood facing him saw how Jesus breathed his last he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!'”
“Going to Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.”
1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,* Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.
4 The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
5 Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
6 He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
“Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”
“…Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.”
The Ascension of Jesus is described twice in the New Testament, with both accounts originating from Luke the Evangelist. The first description appears at the very end of his Gospel (Luke 24:50–53), while the second opens the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:6–12).
In Acts, Luke introduces a crucial narrative element: a forty‑day period (Acts 1:3) during which the risen Jesus appears to the apostles, teaches them, and prepares them for their upcoming mission. This specific timeframe is not emphasized in the Gospel account. This suggests that Luke separates the Resurrection and the Ascension in Acts not because he inherited conflicting traditions, but because it serves a distinct narrative purpose. Acts utilizes these forty days to firmly situate the apostles within the larger framework of Israel’s covenant history, framing the early Church as the direct continuation of God’s saving work.
Once Jesus rises from the dead, the disciples fully recognize him as the Messiah. It is therefore understandable that, in Acts, they ask whether he will now restore Israel’s political kingdom. Luke, writing for future generations of Christians, places a deliberately open‑ended reply in Jesus’s mouth.
The exact timing of the parousia—the Second Coming—is not for them to know. Instead, their task is entirely different: to wait for the Holy Spirit, whose power will transform them into witnesses “to the ends of the earth.” Jerusalem, the central site of Jesus’s Passion and Resurrection, thus becomes the launching pad for this worldwide mission.
Acts adds further symbolic depth to the Ascension through specific biblical motifs:
The message delivered by these figures directly links the Ascension to the Second Coming, promising that the Jesus who is taken up in glory “will return in the same way you saw him go” (Acts 1:11).
Christian tradition understands the mystery of Christ by tracing a single, unbroken arc from the Incarnation to the Ascension. This trajectory begins at the Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38), when the eternal Word—the One who “was with God and…was God” (John 1:1)—takes on human nature in the womb of Mary. In this pivotal moment, the divine and human are permanently united in the Person of Jesus.
The Ascension brings this union to its ultimate fulfillment. Here, the “new, saved man” enters into the very life of the Father, revealing the ultimate destiny of redeemed humanity. Christ’s glorified body becomes the perfect expression of what humanity is truly meant to be in God: a life whose very mode of existence is love, for “God is love” (1 John 4:16). In heaven, the God‑Man embodies this reality completely.
The Ascension is immediately followed by Pentecost, the moment when the apostles receive the promised Holy Spirit from the risen Christ. From that historic day forward, the early believers speak not only of Christ exalted in heaven, but of “Christ in us”—the indwelling presence that dynamically makes all believers active participants in his risen life.
FEATURE image: The Millers in 1920. Lee, Erik, Theodore, Florence and John. Public Domain.
The Millers, Theodore, Elizabeth Lee, Erik, John and Florence, in 1923. Public Domain.
By John P. Walsh
In the first decades of the twentieth century it became increasingly common practice for established American families to reflect and display their personal lives as well as social status in the timely gathering of photographic portraits. Progressively, the American family unit grew more compact in tandem with its greater personal affluence in an economy increasingly dominated by mechanization and the manufacture of consumer goods, all of which worked relentlessly to replace farming as the engine of American enterprise.
The Millers of Poughkeepsie, New York – a seventeenth century town eighty miles north of New York City which in the eighteenth century had progressed to an early state capital and, by 1910, a significant stop on the railroad line1 – shared that prototypical family form as they gathered for their family portraits between 1914 and 1932.
After 1900, camera availability and quality had markedly improved. Moving into the popular culture, photography allowed the display of a family image that is relaxed and natural as well as a time capsule of its members. In the instance of the Millers their formal and informal photographic portraits capture what appears to be a cohesive family unit expressive of their times. They are within a thoughtfully creative pose and posture likely managed by the head of the household, Theodore Miller (1872-1971), an energetic lifelong amateur photographer.
These portraits are ambitious for an aesthetic which manifests as a controlled vibrancy in the sitters as well as overall composition. The outcome for these portraits which all include Lee Miller as a child and teenager are photographs that combine the qualities of the fine arts with the more delicate workings of a machine.
Lee Miller at about eight months old, c. December 1907. Taken by her father Theodore Miller, the amateur photographer would photograph his daughter near incessantly from her childhood into adulthood. Part chronicle, part creative project, their photographer-model relationship could be unusual as he photographed his daughter nude at times over the same time period. Public Domain.
Lee Miller at 8 years in a photograph by her father, Theodore Miller, in 1915. Public Domain.
The Millers, headed by highly credentialed mechanical engineer and amateur photographer Theodore Miller and his wife Florence (1881-1954), saw the couple produce a handsome family: brothers John MacDonald (December 15, 1905-2008) and Erik Theodore (born May 22, 1910-?) and middle daughter, Elizabeth Lee, later Lee Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907-1977).
In childhood, Lee was curious, had her special interests and likes, especially the newly invented movies, and was encouraged by her parents to be free and active. Rambunctious in youth, Li-Li (Elizabeth Lee’s nickname) expressed herself as a sort of tomboy and later a definite teenage rebel. In school she was often undisciplined and, as the ringleader, provocative.2
When she was ten years old in 1917, her father gave Li-Li an inexpensive and popular Kodak Brownie to take photographs. Kodak used the box camera to sell more products and popularize photography. Almost more like a toy, the Brownie series was first introduced in 1900 and extensively marketed to children,3 although they were taken by soldiers into World War I.
Kodak Brownie similar to the first camera Lee Miller had when she was 10 years old that was given to her by her father. PHOTO: “Kodak Brownie Target Six-20” by John Kratz is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
In the age of American invention, teenage Li-Li Miller, intelligent and creative, was fascinated by her father’s enduring experimentation with new camera gadgets including stereoscopy. That photographic application produced two-dimensional images which, when combined in the brain, gave the perception of three-dimensional depth.4
Traditional stereoscopy. PHOTO: “Stereoscopy” by designrecherche is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Millers in 1914. Florence, Erik, Lee, John, Theodore. Public Domain.
Lee Miller and her mother in 1914. Public Domain.
In an almost desperate search for an academic program to constructively engage their daughter’s interest, the Millers placed Li-Li in and out of several schools around Poughkeepsie. Lee traipsed through Governor Clinton school to Oakwood Quaker to St. Mary’s Catholic to Eastman Business College to Putnam Hall known as the prep school for local Vassar College.
Even with extra-curricular dance and theater activities as well as sojourns into creative writing – along with extended trips to New York City and, accompanying her father on business trips, such as to Puerto Rico on a cruise – by 1920 Li-Li seemed only most uniquely prepared to embrace the intrepid nonchalance of the flapper whose age had arrived thanks to the appearance of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“The Flapper” as conceived by American illustrator Frank Xavier Leyendecker (1876-1924) for Life magazine in 1922. It seemed by the start of the 1920’s, the teenage rebel and provacateur Lee Miller was ready to embrace the Flapper’s nonchalant image. PHOTO: “‘The Flapper’ (1922)” by Swallowtail Garden Seeds is marked with CC PDM 1.0. This work is in the public domain.
The Millers in 1920. Lee, Erik, Theodore, Florence and John. The teenager bobbed and later permed her golden hair to match a new decade’s fashionable style as she looked for the next exit out of Poughkeepsie. Public Domain.
At the end of a record-cold spring of 1925, Li-Li, called spoiled and well-to-do by many of her neighborhood classmates, took a ship for Paris, France, on May 29 of that year. The Millers’ intention was not to internationalize the shortcomings of their daughter’s educational career, but to assist in the rebellious 18-year-old’s discovery and development of a talent and skill to match her artistic temperament.5
No one could predict in 1925 that after spending this short period of time in Europe as a teenager, Li-Li Miller of Poughkeepsie, New York, will, as Lee Miller, finally return to Europe to spend most of the rest of her life, over 50 years. In those adult years, Miller became a celebrated artist’s and cinema’s muse as well as an important World War II photographer.
In the cold spring of 1925, Lee Miller is joined by her father as the 18-year-old Lee boards the ship that will take her to Paris to study. The family’s hopes include that in Paris Lee will find and develop some talented skill to express her artistic temperament. Public Domain.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Burke, Carolyn, Lee Miller: A Life, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006, p.6.
2. Haworth-Booth, Mark, The Art of Lee Miller, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 14; provocative-Burke, p. 24.
3. Roberts, Hilary, Lee Miller: A Woman’s War, Thames & Hudson, 2015, p. 190.
4. see Lincoln, Tom, Exercises in Three Dimensions, 2011. http://www.lincolntom.com/pages/Exercises%20in%203D.html- retrieved April 17, 2019
5. Roberts, p.194; https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/april/page/2/
FEATURE image: Chicago Loop, August 2014. Photographs ©John P. Walsh
All photographs and text by John P. Walsh.
William C. “Bill” Henry (1935-1992) for which this portion of 16th Street is named, was a 24th Ward Chicago alderman. Ald. Henry put together the coalition of Black and white aldermen to elect Eugene Sawyer (1934-2008) as mayor of the City of Chicago following the sudden death of Harold Washington (1922-1987), the first black mayor elected in Chicago.
Responding to accusations of deal cutting, Ald. Henry declared during the debate in the City Council chamber: “Deals? We was all making deals!” Henry’s constituents voted their alderman out of office for helping Sawyer in preference to Tim Evans, the reform candidate. Ald. Henry passed away from cancer in 1992 at 56 years old. In 2021 Timothy C. Evans is the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
see- http://www.cookcountycourt.org/ABOUT-THE-COURT/Office-of-the-Chief-Judge – retrieved June 3, 2021; https://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2018/10/15/new-podcast-the-city-brings-back-memories-of-alderman-bill-henry-and-dealmaking-in-chicago – retrieved June 3, 2021.
