This Old Palette: October 2012

C. Curry Bohm

C. Curry Bohm (1894-1971) was among that second generation of members who joined after the club had moved to 1012 N. Dearborn. He is listed in exhibits of 1930 and 1945, and won the Gold Medal in 1931 (at the age of 37)

As you can see above, he was also a plein air painter, and he traveled around to various scenic areas including Brown County, Indiana.

Here's a photo of some of the Brown County artists. Bohm is fourth from left in the front row.

Other P&C members include L.O. Griffith who is second from left, front row, and Oscar Ericson who is first on the left, second row.

As his presence on the internet will attest, he was quite prolific and there is an ongoing interest in collecting his paintings - which I think are quite lively and cheerful. Though at this point, they are modestly priced.

I really love his snow scenes. They make my feet feel cold and wet.

Ben Blessum

Like many of the early P&C members, Ben Blessum (1877 - 1954) was a painter who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and who also had a career in commercial art. LIke several others, he also went to the far west for awhile, making promotional posters for railways.

But his strongest connection seems to have been to his homeland, Norway, that he left with his parents at the age of 11, but to which he often returned. He even worked for a while in the New York travel office of Norwegian State Railways.

As you might agree, he was pretty sharp as both an oil painter and a graphic designer.

Click on the above detail to see a full page of newspaper clippings taken from the Palette and Chisel scrapbook for 1916. Some of the newsprint has deteriorated, but you can tell that his work was not without recognition.

Tim Rees Finale

It wasn't too long ago that I was blown away by Tim's first show at the Palette and Chisel, and now, sadly, this is his last, as like so many of our members before him, he moves out west to the land of sunny skies and receptive galleries

I've always thought that the intelligence of an observational artist can be measured by how long it takes them to discover the P&C. It took me ten years after coming to Chicago, but as Tim tells us in this essay he learned about us from Bonnie Anderson in Scottsdale, and figured out that: "With over 60 hours of models a week, the cost of membership makes the the model fee a mere 12 cents an hour for those who take advantage of all of the sessions."

He also has some negative things to say about our gray skies and crowded workshops - but if the workshops weren't crowded, we wouldn't have them.

Looking over the work in this final exhibition, it looks like Tim is heading in a more dramatic direction. Will he end up doing paintings of biblical, mythological, or historical scenes ?

(Above photos by Del Hall)

Samuel H. Avery

Samuel H. Avery was a member in the 1930's who achieved a bit of recognition in the Art Institute's Chicago and Vicinity Show, where, as seen above, he won an award.

But mostly, like many of the early members, he worked in commercial art.

As seen above, he also wrote instructional articles regarding his craft.

Also like several early members, he worked for the trade magazine, Inland Printer

Surprisingly, that magazine, though changing its name, survived throughout the rest of the 20th Century.

But it failed to survive the current economic downtown, as reported in this notice from August of 2011:

American Printer, a 128-year-old trade magazine, is closing after the August issue.

“There won’t be a September issue,” editor Katherine O’Brien said in a blog post.

“Penton, our parent company, stuck with us through some mighty lean months, but ultimately, there was no foreseeable model to achieve profitability,” she added.

American Printer began life in 1883 as Inland Printer. After World War 2, the magazine was purchased and merged into another title named THE INLAND and AMERICAN PRINTER AND LITHOGRAPHER. That mouthful of a name eventually became American Printer.