Artist: John Warner Norton
Title: July,from the eleven-panel series, The Months of the Year
Date: 1925-27
Medium: murals in oil on canvas
Completed between 1925 and 1927, the John Warner Norton murals of the months of the year at Peirce Elementary were part of renovation of the school's kindergarten. The new construction was to honor Helen Peirce’s long-standing commitment to early childhood education and her belief in the need for children to develop in aesthetically pleasing surroundings. The school asked three well-known contemporary Chicago artists George Grant Elmslie, Jens Jensen, and John Warner Norton to carry out the project. Elmslie, a long-time associate of Louis Sullivan, designed the kindergarten space in Prairie School style. Landscape artist Jens Jensen redesigned the garden and playground adjacent to the kindergarten using plants native to the region. Peirce Elementary is currently restoring the garden to Jensen’s design.
Norton painted twelve panels to fit into Elmslie's architectural setting. In these paintings, Norton depicts typical seasonal changes and atmospheric conditions during each month. March, for instance, presents a windy rural landscape, the trees still without buds. In July, American flags wave in the breeze against a blue sky. Chicago’s Tribune Tower, brand new at the time, stands in the background. Born in 1876 in Lockport, Ill., Norton was an accomplished mural painting instructor at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He completed murals for such sites as the Cliff Dwellers Club, the Fuller Park Assembly Hall, and the Chicago Board of Trade.
Related work in the Art Institute:
Frank Lloyd Wright and George Mann Neidecken, Desk
This desk with its flat, square shapes and simple oak surfaces, is an example of the Prairie School style applied to furniture.
|
