Information About the Artists, Architects & Eras

Herbert Beers was born in Chicago in 1974 and moved to Highland Park in 1919. He received his education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Technology Club of Chicago. In his earlier years, he worked in the office of Daniel Burnham. Beers main architectural contribution has been to public buildings and schools. He designed and built the Elm Place Auditorium addition and Highland Park High School Auditorium, his last project in 1924. Both auditoriums are fine examples of architecture and technical ability. He also completed additions to the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois.

Lawrence Buck was born in New Orleans in 1866. In 1896 he moved to Chicago making his home for nineteen years in the Ravinia area of Highland Park. Buck was both an artist and an architect. He was well known throughout the United States for his architectural renderings and he was a master of perspective and design. During his tenure on the North Shore, he was a member of the Arts Club and the North Shore Art league and a leader of the Ravinia Sketch group. Buck chose Ravinia as his home because of its artistic setting. He loved music and was attracted to the proximity of Ravinia Park. Lawrence Buck was genuinely interested in civic affairs. He generously gave of his time while Ravinia School was being built. He also dedicated himself to the Allendale farm in Lake Villa. Buck was also a watercolorist and his work was frequently exhibited at the Art Institute.

Ralph Clarkson was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1861. He studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Art and in Paris with William T. Donnet. He moved to Chicago from Italy and Paris in 1896 where he won many awards for his art. He moved to Highland Park in 1919. In 1924, he was President of the Illinois Art Commission and he was a member of the Chicago Municipal Art Commission. He completed the oil painting of Jesse Lowe Smith in the Elm Place Auditorium. It was unveiled at Jesse Lowe Smith's memorial service held on his sixty-fifth birthday.

Dalstrom was born January 18, 1893 in Gotland, Sweden. In 1901, he came with his parents to the United States and studied art at The Art Institute of Chicago where two of his well known teachers were George Bellows and Randall Davey. Dalstrom received awards including the Logan Award and Gold Medal from The Art Institute and the Gold Medal Award from the Chicago Society of Artists. Dalstrom was a New Deal artist painting many murals for schools, hospitals and other public buildings. He painted the mural in the Gillespie, Illinois post office. He was also the supervisor of the Mural Unit for the Illinois Art Project. He completed murals in three Chicago schools. In addition, he was on the staff of the Field Museum where he painted diorama backgrounds for the American Indian section. Dalstrom worked in oils, watercolor and graphics and his works were represented in international, national and regional exhibitions. He painted in Sweden, France, Italy, Germany and the United States. His wife, Frances M. Foy was also a New Deal artist. His murals at the Green Bay Road School (now District 112 Administrative Offices) depict children playing in the fields of flowers with animals as a border.

Luca della Robbia was a Renaissance sculptor whose famous work was the Cantoria or singers' pulpit for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. This sculpture consisted of marble relief panels of music-making children, sculpted in the 1430s. The original panels are now in the Cathedral Museum in Florence.

Donald Drumm was born in Warren, Ohio in 1935. His grandfather was a blacksmith. After two years of pre-med at Hiram College, Donald transferred to Kent State University where he majored in Fine Arts. He received his BFA and his MA degrees. Don Drumm is considered a nationally celebrated sculptor who works in metals and cement. His wife is a fiber artist. He produces sculptures both large and small. His large sculptures are at Kent State and Bowling Green University in Ohio. He creates 30 new design ideas every six months. He and his wife own the Donald Drumm Studios and Gallery in Akron, Ohio. His cast aluminum piece at Red Oak School was purchased in honor of the retiring principal, Bob Dean.

Raymond Flinn was born in Highland Park, Illinois in 1882. Raymond Flinn was an architect employed by the architectural firm Holmes and Flinn of Chicago. His first employment was with Norman S. Patton whose firm later became known as Holmes and Flinn. Patton, Holmes and Flinn designed an addition to Elm Place School in 1912. Flinn designed Green Bay Road School that opened in 1929. He was a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Illinois Society of Architects. Other buildings he designed were the Highland Park Library, the Highland Park Woman's Club, many of the buildings at Carleton College in Minnesota and the First Presbyterian Church of River Forest. He was a resident of Highland Park and took a keen interest in working with the Green Bay principal to build a child-centered school.

Miklos Gaspar was born in Kaba, Hungary where he studied at the Art Academy and the Industrial Art School of Budapest under Korosfoi Kriesh Aladar and Ujvary Ignacz. He continued his art education studying in Venice, Florence and other Italian cities. After studying two masters, Giotto Botticelli and Durer, his attention turned to Puvis de Chavannes, Monet and Hodler. He was recognized by membership in the Hungarian Art Institute and exhibited his work in Budapest. He painted in Russia, Italy, Serbia, Rumania and Bulgaria. He came to the United States when he was 21 years old where he won The Tribune prize in a historical mural painting entitled "Peter Zenger Before the Bar." He did two large murals at the Knights of Columbus Building in Springfield called "The Landing of Columbus" and "Columbus before Queen Isabella". He has many murals in Chicago churches, the Sheraton Hotel, formerly Medina Athletic Club, the Union League Club of Chicago. He also completed forty Century of Progress murals that are now located at Lane Tech High School in Chicago. In all, he completed 48 murals. He painted the murals at Oak Terrace School.

Little is known about artist Dale Holcomb. She was a member of the Easel Division of the Federal Art Project in Illinois. In 1940 she married artist Edgar Miller. In 1967 they moved to Clearwater, Florida where they operated the Roxie Motel until her death in 1978. She painted the Braeside mural in 1938.

George Hutchinson was born in Chicago and raised in Highland Park. He graduated from Cornell University and did graduate work in city planning at the Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts in Bloomfield Hill, Michigan. During World War II, he served with the Office of Strategic Services in China. A Northbrook resident when he died, George Hutchinson was the architect who represented the architectural firm Perkins and Will. George Hutchinson specialized in educational buildings. Hutchinson was the first project director for Aurora East High School. He also designed the fine arts and dormitory complex at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and the fine arts buildings at Denisson University in Granville, Ohio and Albion College in Albion, Michigan. He designed buildings for Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, the campus at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and many buildings for the University of Denver. Perkins and Will designed and built Indian Trail Elementary School, Sherwood Elementary, Kennedy Elementary (now closed), Wayne Thomas Elementary and Northwood Junior High School. Perkins and Will recently completed the new Oak Terrace Elementary School continuing the long term relationship with District 112 in building child friendly schools.

Jens Jensen was born in 1860 in Denmark. He attended agricultural school in Denmark. Then he spent three years sketching parks in German cities. He was considered an artist with a love of nature. He became frustrated with the formal parks of Europe so he moved to the United States in 1884. He headed to Chicago were he was employed first as a laborer and then a foreman in the west side Chicago parks. In 1906, he became superintendent of the west parks, now a part of the Chicago Park District. He designed and supervised the building of Humboldt, Garfield, Douglas and Columbus parks in Chicago using his distinctive style and native plant materials. Jensen lived in Ravinia with many other artists. In 1920 he retired to private practice where he did design for private residences, school and businesses from Maine to Iowa. After the death of his wife, in 1935, he moved to Ellison Bay, Wisconsin where he established The Clearing, his unique "school of the soil" for landscape architects and artists. He died in 1951 but his life had been dedicated to the preservation of the beauty of native landscapes.

Walter Koeniger was born in Germany in 1881. He moved to Woodstock, New York around 1912 where he fell in love with winter. He had studied architecture before coming to the United States but his first love was to be an artist. He became well known by painting winter scenes of the Catskill mountains in New York state. He also lived in New York City where he painted magnificent winter scenes of water and bridges. A 1925 magazine says about Koeniger's work, "An artist who has dedicated his life to the depiction of the American landscape in the winter months." He received widespread acclaim as an artist. The painting at Ravinia Elementary School was found in the basement after 30 years and cleaned and restored thanks to generous donations from District 112, the Ravinia PTA and school alumni. The work is now above the mantle in the Ravinia School Library. It is thought by art experts to be the long-lost painting entitled Winter Afternoon.

PeterPaul Ott was born in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. He studied in Dresden, Germany at the Royal College of Fine and Applied Arts. He served in World War I and followed his service by studying at the Austrian State Academy of Fine Arts. In 1924, he moved to New York where he studied with Alexander Archipenko at Cooper Union. He also worked in a factory carving furniture and received architectural sculpture commissions for the interiors and exteriors of buildings. In 1931, he moved to Chicago where he taught at Northwestern University and the Evanston Academy of Fine Arts. From 1936 to 1939, he was the Chicago WPA supervisor of sculpture. He did the interior and exterior decoration for the Oak Park, Illinois Post Office. In 1940 he moved to Laguna Beach, California where he taught at several high schools including Laguna Beach, South Pasadena, Whittier and San Juan Capistrano. He may have been the artist for the wood sculptures at the Green Bay Road School, now the District 112 Administrative Building.

Lawrence Perkins was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1907. Perkins graduated from New Trier High School in the mid-1920s and from Cornell University in 1930. At Cornell, he roomed with Philip Will, Jr. In 1935, they formed Perkins and Will, the renown architectural firm. While the company struggled during the depression and World War II, it took off when the Baby Boom made school construction a national priority. By 1960, Perkins and Will had designed and constructed 372 school projects in 24 states. In addition to the many schools in Highland Park, Perkins and Will are best known for Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois built in 1940. Crow Island was a radical departure from the traditional model of schools. It was built in a child-friendly scale and it was the first school to be zoned by pupil age groups. Schools in Highland Park completed by Perkins and Will include Indian Trail, Sherwood, Wayne Thomas, Northwood Junior High and most recently, the new Oak Terrace School in Highwood.

Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. The ceiling fresco (painting on fresh plaster) called Aurora dated 1612 - 1614 is in the Casino Rospigliosi Pallavicini in Rome, Italy. It was commissioned by Cardinal Sciopione Borghese.

Robert E. Seyfarth was born in Blue Island, Illinois in 1878. He received his architectural training at the Chicago Manuel Training School. He began his work with George W. Maher, a Prairie School architect. In 1909, Seyfarth established his own practice with an office on the 21st floor of the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Eventually he moved his office to his Shingle-style Highland Park home on Sheridan Road. While Seyfarth was influenced by Maher's Prairie style, he settled on a more eclectic style that drew on classic design from the Colonial Revival and Continental Provincial periods. The 54 homes that he designed in Highland Park (and hundreds of others on the North Shore) have similar architectural characteristics that include inset dormers, front entrances with prominent motifs, classic designed fireplaces and windows that extend to the floor allowing for a great expanse of interior light. Seyfarth completed one of the additions to West Ridge School in 1926 that includes large windows and an Art Deco style fireplace.

Lorado Taft was a well known sculptor with strong ties to Illinois. He was born in 1860 in Elmwood, Illinois. When his father became a professor of geology and zoology at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Lorado studied sculpture with a Belgian sculptor. Taft received both his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from the University of Illinois in 1879 and 1880 respectively. He moved to Paris for three years to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. When he returned to the states, he became an instructor at The School of the Art Institute from 1886 to 1907. He also taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois in Champaign. He wrote a great deal about the history of art and he opened a studio in Chicago in 1886. Taft was commissioned to create many sculptures for which he won awards. Some of the well known sculptures include two for the 1893 Columbian Exposition entitled The Sleep of the Flowers and The Awakening of the Flowers. He concentrated on sculptures of heroic figures such as a statue of the prominent native American Black Hawk now overlooking the Rock River near Oregon, Illinois and the sculpture commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debate. His greatest work is now at the entrance to the University of Illinois called The Alma Mater Statue. His sculpture of Lincoln at Elm Place School is a legacy of great sculpture for Highland Park students.

John Shellette Van Bergen was born in 1885 in Oak Park, Illinois where after graduation from high school, he went to work as a draftsman with Walter Burley Griffin, an architect family friend. Van Bergen also studied architecture at Chicago Technical College. He was then employed by Frank Lloyd Wright at his Oak Park studio. Van Bergen did working drawings for the Robie house and the Mrs. Thomas Gale house. When Wright's studio closed in 1910, Van Bergen moved to work with William E. Drummond until he passed his architects' license exam in 1911. At this point, Van Bergen moved to Ravinia, Illinois (now called Highland Park) where he established his own practice designing residences and Braeside School. He stayed in Highland Park until 1951 when he built a home and studio in Barrington. He stayed in Barrington until 1955 when he moved to Santa Barbara, California. He practiced architecture until he was age 82, two years before his death. There is little documentation of his work because of a fire in his home in 1964.

Mildred Waltrip was born in 1911 in Madisonville, Kentucky. She was educated in the Chicago Public Schools and studied at The Art Institute from 1926 to 1933. She traveled to Paris where she studied with Fernand Leger. She became a mural painter during the Federal Art Project and a designer and commercial artist. In addition to the Federal Art Project, she worked for Marshall Field's advertising department from 1936 to 1937 where she illustrated books on "How to Buy Intelligently". She had mural commissions at the Congress Hotel, Cook County Hospital, Chicago's Henrici's Restaurant, the Merchandise Mart, the Chicago Park Board Administration Building, the Gibson Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio and Hatch School in Oak Park and Ravinia School in Highland Park. She became a graphic designer completing many posters for the Brookfield Zoo and other national locations. She also was an illustrator for children's books. Her hobbies include gardening and a love of outdoor life. She has a large repertoire of hill-billy songs that she learned in Kentucky while visiting her grandparents.

Kathy Weaver is an artist who uses a wide variety of techniques, from silk-screening to airbrushing, to get her message across. A recent series of "Robot" quilts center on personal topics and have hand embroidered, painted and airbrushed cyborg figures that act as dopplegangers in order to question the status quo. Weaver is a retired art teacher who is now a full time studio artist. She often employs the type of perspective and bright colors she saw her students intuitively using. Ms. Weaver was the art teacher at Oak Terrace School.

Bertram Weber, born in Chicago in 1898, followed his father's footsteps in becoming an architect. He began his study of architecture at Northwestern and finished it at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after World War I. He took a job in his father's architectural office (Peter J. Weber). After he graduated from MIT in 1922, he took a job in the office of noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. In 1923 he started a partnership with Charles White, the architect of the Oak Park Post Office. After White's death in 1936, Bertram Weber worked independently designing both homes and institutional buildings including schools. In 1973 he was joined by his son, John and his office was renamed Weber & Weber. Bertram Weber was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 1953. Weber lived in Highland Park where he served as President of the Park Board in 1948. He was a life member of the Ravinia Board of Trustees (his father, Peter J. Weber has designed the Park). He died in 1989. Weber designed numerous homes and he worked on Ravinia, Elm Place and West Ridge schools. He designed Edgewood Middle School, the American Legion Hall and the Community Center, all in Highland Park.

Thomas M. Wilder was born in 1876 in Cold Water, Michigan. He came to the Ravinia area in 1906. Mr. Wilder was to a large extent a self taught artist. He learned to paint while studying the works of great artists during his lunch hour. He was employed as a commercial artist. He was employed for twenty years by Motor Age an automotive publication. He taught art classes in his home and at the YMCA. His works have been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and in the Highland Park Woman's Club. He was president of the North Shore Art League and the Lake County Art League. He spent the summers taking long sketching trips to the mountainous regions of New Mexico, Taos and Santa Fe. He also traveled to southern and eastern locations but he considered the local landscape of Highland Park as the best. He gave four paintings to Ravinia School in memory of his first wife Edna Higman Wilder, a noted musician. Mrs. Wilder started the first library at Ravinia School. The four paintings included an elm tree in Ravinia, a scene in Mexico, the Grand Canyon and Crater Lake (in Oregon).

William C. Zimmerman was born in Thiensville, Wisconsin in 1859. He attended school in Milwaukee and studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1877 to 1880. He married Emily Vogts in 1881 and they had three sons and one daughter, William Spencer, Iria, Edward Carbys and Ralph Waldo. He practiced architecture with Flanders and Zimmerman firm. The firm of Zimmerman, Saxe and Zimmerman was formed in 1914 when he took his son-in-law Albert Moore Saxe and his son, Ralph Waldo Zimmerman into partnership. He was the state architect for Illinois for nine years. He was a member of the Board of Examiners of architects and a member of the Illinois Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He designed many public buildings in the East and Midwest including the Illinois State Prison in Joliet and the Pennsylvania State Prison. He designed many beautiful houses throughout Chicago and the suburbs. He designed Lincoln School in Highland Park in 1909.

There is much more to know about the Federal Art Project and the other New Deal projects by reading some of the books in the attached bibliography or going to the New Deal Network web site, http://newdeal.feri.org.