Author: Lark-Horovitz, Betty (1894-1995)
Title: View of the Northern Lion at the Art Institute of Chicago Looking North on Michigan Ave. Original Etching
Description: Chicago: circa late1920s. Original etching. 5.25 x 7.8 inches plate size. 8.55 x 11.6 inches sheet size. Signed in the plate. Printed on handmade laid paper with Sweden watermark. The Boston architects Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge designed the neoclassical building, which announces its serious artistic purpose and lineage via its limestone cladding, Corinthian columns, friezes copied from the Parthenon, and a triangular pediment under which are listed the names of famed artists (not that the Art Institute owned works by any of those artists at the time). But, however impressive it looked, when the building opened for the Exposition in May of 1893 and even when it became the Art Institute in December, it was missing a crucial feature: the two bronze lions that stand guard in front. Those weren’t unveiled until several months later, on May 10, 1894. Modeled by the sculptor Edward Kemeys, and weighing more than two tons each, they were described by Kemeys himself as “on the prowl” (the north lion) and “in an attitude of defiance” (the south). Ref. Edan Milton Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940," Third Edition, p. 547 Exhibited: Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art (January 27-February 22, 1970)... Betty Lark-Horovitz (1894-1995) was an accomplished graphic artist. She was commissioned to do etchings of several buildings at Purdue University in 1930. There were only 100 sets, each numbered and signed by the artist. That same year her engraved views of American cities and views With graver and woodblock over American Highways, was published. ( New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1930.) She was a master of both architectural views as well as views of flora. Betty was the wife of Dr. Karl Lark-Horovitz who was the head of the Department of Physics at Purdue from 1929 to the 1950s. After his death in 1958, she moved to Berkeley, CA. where she created wood-engravings that depict the flora in the Berkeley Hills... Provenance: From the estate of the artist. .

Keywords:


See more books from our catalog: Art