Louis Grell
Louis Frederick Grell (November 30, 1887-November 21, 1960) Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa to a meat market owner and lived their until age 12, when in 1899 his parents decided to send him off to Hamburg, Germany to study art. Grell's first two years were spent learning the German language and then it was off to a three-year study of the fundamentals of painting. Soon after, Louis Grell was accepted to the prestigious School of Applied Arts in Hamburg, where he would earn his first commissions to paint murals inside the famous Hamburg boathouse and elaborate paintings for the home of Germany's wealthiest man, "Budge, the Turpentine King." Louis Grell's work at the Academy would earn him praise in 1906 at the Third German Arts & Crafts Exhibition in Dresden.
Louis Frederick Grell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ludwig Heinrich Grell Council Bluffs, Iowa |
| Died | Chicago, IL |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | School of Applied Arts Hamburg, Royal Akademie of Fine Arts, Munich, University of Munich |
| Known for | composition and portrait painter |
| Notable work | murals inside Chicago Theater, Netherland Plaza Hotel, Northwestern Military Academy, Notre Dame de Chicago, Union Station St. Louis, |
| Spouse | Fredricka Seammers |
| Awards | Harry Frank prize Art Institute of Chicago, Municipal Art League prize AIC |
| Patron(s) | E. Martin Hennings, J. Allan St. John, Albin Polasek, Victor Higgins, Walter Ufer |
Being the top student in Hamburg, the School of Applied Arts would pay for his school fees and send Grell to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1908 through 1912. Grell also attended the University of Munich. While in Munich Louis Grell was a member of the famed American Artists Club with fellow members E. Martin Hennings, Walter Ufer, Victor Higgins-a total of sixteen members are photographed attending Friday evening meetings at Club Glasl in Munich. Upon completion of his formal studies in Germany, Louis Grell traveled Europe studying at major art centers, painting and exhibiting his works throughout Europe.
After America joined World War I, Louis Grell was forced to escape Europe through Norway and landed his first position as a a stage set designer for large productions in New York City. By early fall of 1916, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts came calling offering a position as art instructor. Grell family archives, specifically a postcard by Grell from October of 1916, show Louis Grell as rooming with fellow Munich artist and friend E. Martin Hennings in studio #14 at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago until they both decided to relocate to Tree Studio art colony in Chicago's near north side. Louis Grell would live at Tree Studios in Chicago from 1917 until his death in 1960.
Louis Grell was the main art instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922 where one of his students was animator and cartoonist, Walt Disney. In 1917, Elias Disney relocated his family back to Chicago where Walt Disney attended McKinley High School during the day and took art classes at night at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts under Louis Grell in 1917 and 1918. Louis Grell would later recount the Walt Disney days with Grell Family members as Walt Disney's fame grew, but never talked about this outside the family. Recent Grell Family archives uncovered aiding in proving this claim, but the real help came in the summer of 2012, when Mrs. Dianne Disney Miller, eldest daughter of Walt Disney authorized the release of Walt Disney transcripts from the Illinois Board of Higher Education to the Louis Grell Family in Council Bluffs, Iowa. These never before released transcripts are currently under analysis and who’s authorization for release could only come from a legal heir to Walt Disney and the Walt Disney family was unaware of their existence until the summer of 2012.
In 1922, Louis Grell was recruited by Director Charles L. Hutchison of the Art Institute of Chicago to became art instructor at the famous School of the Art Institute of Chicago and would remain until 1934 when Grell would then embark on a career as a solo portrait and mural painter. Grell would exhibit 25 times at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1917 until 1941 winning top honors. Grell won the coveted Harry Frank prize for figure composition in 1930 with his large mural titled "Destiny" at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Municipal Art League prize for portraiture in 1936 for "Portrait of the Painter, Moessel" at the Art Institute of Chicago. Louis Grell also exhibited heavily throughout Chicago and in New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC.
Louis Grell's regular clientele list included old movie palace giants Balaban and Katz with Rapp and Rapp architects, the Albert Pick Hotel chain, Daprato Statuary Company, Publix Theaters, Paramount and Universal Studios. Louis Grell was primarily a portrait and mural painter, but the Grell Family collection and other known works include a vast array of mural studies, portraits, landscapes and still life paintings. Murals by Grell can be seen today by visiting the Chicago Theater, the Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel and Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati, the Assumption Catholic Church in Chaicago, the Manufactures Bank & Trust in St. Louis, MO now the Lift For Life Academy, Notre Dame de Chicago, the Water Board Building in Detroit, the Springfield, Illinois (Amtrak station), Pick-Ohio Hotel now Amedia Plaza senior Housing in downtown Youngstown, OH and many others.
Close friends included Tarzan and Jane in the Tarzan (book series) by illustrator J. Allan Saint John, Taos Society of Artists early members E. Martin Hennings, Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins, sculptors John Storrs and Albin Polasek, painters Carl Hoeckner, John and Anna Stacey, Julius Moessel, Macena Barton, impressionist Pauline Palmer, actors Burgess Meredith, Diana Barrymore and husband, Olympian and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller, vaudeville actors Jean and Inez Bregant and many others.
In 1960, at the age of 72, with an ailing heart disease, Louis Grell and fellow Tree Studio artist and resident Donald J. Anderson chained themselves to a "tree" to help prevent bulldozers from tearing down the historic Tree Studios building and annexes, now a National Historic Landmark and Chicago City Landmark built in 1894-the oldest resident artist colony in America.
Louis Frederick Grell, painter and muralist, died of a heart ailment while working on numerous mural projects and easel paintings at Tree Studio in Chicago on November 21, 1960.
References and sources
- List of Chicago Artists (1973); edited by H. Black
- Illinois–Cook County. National Register of Historic Places.
- The Louis Grell Family Archives, Council Bluffs, IA
- Chicago Tribune
- Council Bluffs, Iowa The Daily Nonpareil
- Ryerson and Burnham Library, Art Institute of Chicago, Louis Grell papers