E: 32 The Chicago Peace Prophet – Art Unrestrained at Chicago Heights Union Street Gallery
Known as the Peace Prophet, this Chicago artist creates striking portraits and botanical drawings. Little is known about the Peace Prophet, a literal outsider artist living homeless on the streets of Chicago. This enigmatic woman has created a remarkable body of work and is among the most widely collected artists in Chicago as her works are estimated to be in the collections of hundreds of people who have encountered her where she lives, on the streets surrounding the Chicago Cultural Center at Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street. The Peace Prophet is beginning to be recognized by the larger art world. Harvey Pranian, dealer in outsider art, describes her work as, Reminiscent of Lee Godie but more elusive. In addition to being owned by hundreds of private collectors and admirers, her work is included in the permanent collection of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago.
The Union Street Gallery exhibition, The Peace Prophet: Art Unrestrained is the first gallery show of her work. The exhibit was organized by Ms. Geri Biamonte, Chicago Heights native and avid collector. Ms. Biamonte provided a talk about her association with the artist at a reception on Saturday, February 9, 2019 from 1-3pm. Ms. Biamonte states: A display of the Peace Prophets works leaves the viewer feeling as if he or she is standing before a kaleidoscope. Her art is unique, and while it would be tempting to tag her as an “outsider artist”, the mystery of her history leaves her education in question. This creative expression is worthy of recognition by and inclusion into the larger arts community. The show ran from January 31 -March 9, 2019 at Union Street Gallery, 1527 Otto Blvd., Chicago Heights, IL.
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CONTACT: arts2envision@yahoo.com
William Hawkins | Making Itself
n 1982, Roger Ricco visited and filmed the painting studio of William Hawkins. in Columbus, Ohio.
William Hawkins was born in Kentucky on July 27,1895; his big block letter signature informs us of this in nearly all of his paintings. In 1916 he moved to Columbus, Ohio where he became an urban jack-of-all-trades, working relentlessly and often simultaneously at numerous odd jobs including driving a truck. Although Columbus became Hawkins’ permanent home, his childhood in Kentucky provided him with his knowledge and love of animals, an awareness that informs even his most fantastic dinosaur and safari animal paintings. And, in the 1930s, when he began making art, animals were his first subjects. In Two Dinosaurs Wrestling Hawkins intuits the mass and force of the creatures, and physically builds out their forms with sand. Although he only had a third grade education, Hawkins always retained a curious, optimistic and energetic spirit. His selective eye constantly culled photos from newspapers, magazines, and advertisements, which he would clip and store in a suitcase archive. He referred to these images as research. Almost all of his paintings originated from one of these clippings, such as the swimming pool at the Hearst Castle in Neptune Pool, San Simeon or the Columbus, Ohio landmark depicted in his series of paintings of the Deshler Hotel. Hawkins would also collage photos into his paintings and paint around the collaged element, adding another dimension to the painting’s formal composition and its emotional power.
Even though Hawkins had dedicated himself exclusively to his art by 1979, his work wasn't exhibited publicly until 1982 when artist Lee Garrett entered one of Hawkins’ paintings in the amateur division of the Ohio State Fair. However, artist Robert Natkin was so profoundly affected by Hawkins’ painting that he emphatically awarded it first prize in the professional division. William Hawkins' prominence in the history of art was thereby established, and his career rapidly gained momentum. He painted with uninhibited exuberance up until his death from a stroke in 1990. Always open to experimentation and growth as an artist, Hawkins said,There’s nothing to do but sit around and get better.”
William Hawkins has been the subject of museum retrospectives at the American Museum of Folk Art, New York, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Ginza Art Space, Shiseido Corporation, Tokyo. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in major museum survey exhibitions of American Outsider and Folk Art including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA among many others. His work is in preeminent museum and private collections throughout the world, including the American Museum of Folk Art, New York, the Columbus Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, The National Museum of American Art, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo and the Newark Museum, New Jersey among others. There are plans for a William Hawkins retrospective at the High Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Most recently, the Intuit Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, IL showcased William Hawkins alongside Hawkins Bolden in Hawkins/Hawkins: One Saw Everything, One Saw Nothing (September 14, 2012 - January 5, 2013).
William Hawkins: Making Itself will be on view at Ricco/Maresca Gallery from March 21st through May 11, 2013.
The Secret Life and Art of Henry Darger
Henry Darger is one of the most famous outsider artists in the world. But no one knew about his art while he was alive. Why he kept it a secret is a mystery but we’re going to try and find out by examining the only evidence he left behind—his art.
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Soldiers In Trench, By Ernest Brooks [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons,
M. Night Shyamalan 2008, By bollywoodhungama.com [CC BY 3.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons,
Henry Darger | Down the Rabbit Hole
Henry Darger is responsible for crafting 30,000 pages of writing and approximately 300 original pieces of gorgeous (and sometimes terrifying) visual art, all of which was discovered only when he was on his deathbed in Chicago. However, few know his name and even fewer know where he came from. So who was this elusive, enigmatic figure?
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10. El Greco
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6. Henry Darger
5. Henry David Thoreau
4. Edgar Allan Poe
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MIT Technology Day 1994—For the Wonder of it All: The Arts at MIT
MIT's Technology Day 1994 titled For the the Wonder of it All: the Arts at MIT takes place on June 3, 1994, and features the following presentations: Philip Morrison on Art and Science; I. M. Pei '40 and William Mitchell on I. M. Pei Recent Work; Richard Polich ML '65 on Engineering and Art; and Lloyd Schwartz, John Harbison, and Tod Machover on The Sounds of Music at MIT. The video includes clips of musical performances.
Chicago Tonight full episode April 17, 2019
The Great Gildersleeve: Selling the Drug Store / The Fortune Teller / Ten Best Dressed
The Great Gildersleeve (1941--1957), initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first introduced on Oct. 3, 1939, ep. #216. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.
On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee! became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was revealed as Philharmonic. Gildy admits as much at the end of Gildersleeve's Diary on the Fibber McGee and Molly series (Oct. 22, 1940).
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.