A lovely collection of mural studies by the midwestern artist and muralist Charles Holloway. Included is an presentational, explanatory text which reads: “Suggested scheme of decoration for rectors New Restaurant...
A lovely collection of mural studies by the midwestern artist and muralist Charles Holloway.
Included is an presentational, explanatory text which reads: “Suggested scheme of decoration for rectors New Restaurant Showing a part of painted panels around wall expressing the gladness of life from Spring’s Awakening to Autumn’s Fruition Designed by Charles Holloway for Mandel Brothers Chicago 1905.” This presumably is meant to correspond with the studies of women representing the harvest, the four seasons, etc. Also included are other allegorical depictions of lofty notions like “Justice,” “Knowledge” “Truth” and the like. These presumably were designs related to his many commissions from Midwestern courthouses, capitol buildings, and other civic structures. There is also a study for a memorial for famed Chicago architect John Wellborn Root. One unusual drawing shows an apocalyptic scene, and was possibly for a Church.
Born in Philadelphia as 1859, Charles Holloway moved to St. Louis early in life where he began work as an artist and teacher. After a stint in Paris, he returned to the US and in 1888 won a competition in Chicago to paint the mural on the proscenium arch of the new Auditorium Theater built by Louis Sullivan Dankmar Adler. He received many other commissions in Chicago including a mural for the city’s Steinway Hall and the 1892 design for the “I will” symbol that appeared widely during the Columbian Exposition.
Holloway created murals for the South Dakota State Capitol, the Peoria, Illinois, City Building, the U.S. District Court of Milwaukee, and the Courthouse in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He also created the mural, painting and stained glass for the Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana, perhaps his most fully-realized endeavor. He also worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, designing the stained glass for the Laboratory Building of the Keeley Institute in Dwight, Iowa. One of his last major projects was a series of murals for the Court of Palms at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.