Theodore Lely

Stately Pines

The above painting, by Theodore Lely,  reminding me Mirror Lake in the Wisconsin Dells, was mentioned in the catalog of the 1916 exhibition of the Palette and Chisel Club held at the Art Institute of Chicago.

His granddaughter has just sent me an image of the above painting which now hangs above her sofa.

She tells us that:


My grandfather was born in 1886 in Switzerland (we believe near Visp/Valais) to a French father and a Swiss mother. Upon the death of his mother, Paulina, my grandfather moved with his father and siblings to Paris, and eventually in 1900, to the United States, settling in Chicago. It was there that he met my Swedish grandmother, Sigrid Gelin. We believe he painted "Stately Pines" as an engagement gift to her.  My grandfather worked as a bank executive in Chicago and died in Chicago in 1939 at the age of 53.