Artist: Philip
Ayer Sawyer (1879-1949)
Title: Industry, Progress, and History
Date: 1915
Medium: 3-panel oil on canvas
Sawyer’s three-panel mural
spans the rear of the stage in the school auditorium at Gary Elementary.
In it, the artist employed a combination of allegorical, historical,
and unknown types to illustrate the industry, rapid growth, and
history of Chicago. The central scene
is Progress, an allegory
of the arts and the city. The figures are arranged in a pyramid
in a classical architectural setting.
Dressed in pseudo-classical attire, they hold attributes of the
arts -- a lute, a book, a palette, and a compass. The white-clad
Progress appears at the apex of the pyramid. A child in contemporary
clothing looks on. Progress’s bejeweled crown and the golden
rays emanating from her finger allude to her abstract powers.
Sawyers presents a procession of famous and
anonymous figures in History (see
detail). A Native-American chief, Christopher Columbus, Abraham
Lincoln, a Native-American woman, a Union soldier, Illinois Governor
John Altgeld (1847-1902), and a young mother with her children
stand as representatives of Illinois. The
inclusion of Altgeld in the procession is unique in Chicago Public
Schools murals. Altgeld was best known for his pardoning of the
German-American anarchists involved in the Haymarket
Affair (1886). The paper in his hand refers to his 1893 decision.
Altgeld’s presence is especially noteworthy given that the
school in which the mural hangs was named after Judge Joseph Easton
Gary, who presided over the Haymarket trial.
Related work in the Art Institute:
William
Rush, Andrew Jackson
Rush’s marble bust of early 19th century American
President Andrew Jackson conveys the idealized strength seen in
this mural’s procession of great Americans such as Abraham
Lincoln.
Artist: Roberta Elvis (?)
Title: Children’s
Fairy Tales
Date: c. 1940
Medium: 2-panel oil on canvas
The rear wall of classroom 204 (formerly the
Gary Elementary library) is decorated with this frieze illustrating
scenes from well-known children’s fairy tales. The mural
includes scenes from The Little Gingerbread Boy, Jack and the
Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red
Riding Hood. In each scene, the artist captures a pivotal
moment in the story. Jack and Jill, for instance, tumble down
a hill with an overturned pail of water before them. Although
no signature has been found on the work, its delicate figures
and soft pastel colors are typical of the style of WPA
muralist Roberta Elvis. Elvis painted similar children’s
subjects for other Chicago Public Schools as an employee of the
mural division of the 1930s Illinois
Art Project.
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