| Summary: | "With the landmark World's Columbian Exposition, held in 1893, Chicago established its identity as a 'Window on the West': an economic and cultural hub linking the traditions of the East with the resources of the West after the offical 'closure' of the frontier declared that year by Frederick Jackson Turner. During the period 1890-1940, Chicago experienced tremendous population growth, pioneered numerous technological advances, and contributed to the development of artistic modernism. Chicago artists looked back at an imagined, idyllic past and romantic Indian heroes, and forward to an equally utopian future in which American culture would rediscover its soul through contact with 'authentic' native peoples and artistic expressions. A number of important patrons supported these artists in their quest to depict the West and Southwest. Individuals as diverse as railway entrepreneur Edward E. Ayer; five-term mayor Carter H. Harrison, Jr.; real estate mogul and politician George F. Harding; and progressively inclined Art Institute director Daniel Catton Rich shared a desire for uniquely American art, fostered in Chicago and featuring motifs found in the West and Southwest. The art they commissioned and collected took many forms, as seen in this publication, which accompanied an exhibition delivered largely from the Art Institute's permanent collections and from local public and private collections. The broad array of media and styles presented here range from the naturalistic sculpture of Frederic Remington and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, through the colorful Taos paintings of Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins, to the modernist abstractions of Georgia O'Keeffe. This publication provides a focused social and cultural history of the role played by Chicago artists and patrons in the evolution of a visual language for depicting the landscape and people of the American West. These works of art both reflected and influence the nation's perspective on its land, people, and history"--Publisher's description.
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