Chicago Artists in the 20th Century
Lester G. Hornby (1882-1956)
Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1917
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY have been issuing histories of the greater cities of the United States—histories of an intensive character, brief, accurate, picturesque, and psychological. They have required the writers to give them the essence of the city, or rather, to throw upon the screen a few pictures that would convey the meanings, the ambitions and the past of these cities.
“CHICAGO” has for its author Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor, than whom no better man could have been found. The chronicle, without pretense, false assumption, or verbal excesses, appears as an intimate and sympathetic record. Mr. Taylor was reared on the west side near Union park in the days when it was a bower of flowers and the resting place of the “nicest” people in town. He knew the old families, imbibed the ideals, felt the restrictions of a community which, coming out of New England, was loyal to its traditions and codes.
That group, the essential and authoritative part of Chicago, while it has not helped the balance of political power, and while it has been driven from one locality to another by the encroachments of hundreds of thousands of foreigners, remains, after all, the dominating social, moral, and intellect force. This is a fact which those who really are aware of the ideals of the city know well, but to Mr. Chatfield-Taylor remains the distinction of being the first to point this out in print.
It is fortunate that this history has been written by one who does not have in all cases to refer to records of the past. The author has his own memory to consult, and he is able therefore, to make his own interpretations of tendencies and events. An air of simplicity and distinction characterizes these frank and informing pages, and he who reads the book will, if he had been consulting old family letters, while the reader who must for the first time acquaint himself with the past of our city will be both entertained and instructed.
The illustrations truly supplement the text. They are by Lester G. Hornby, who remained in Chicago for a length of time studying not only its “imposing edifices” but its nooks and corners. This edition is limited to one thousand.
Rush Street at the Bridge
Watercolor
Field Museum, at Jackson Park
State Street from the Van Buren Loop Station
The Library
Michigan Boulevard South from 9th Street
Washington Street Looking East from Clark Street
Park Row at the Railway Station
Chicago River from Rush Street Bridge
The Cañon Quincy Street from Fifth Avenue
Watercolor
From the Viaduct—The Loop Station at West Randolph Street
The Board of TradeBuilding from La Salle Street
The Market in South Water Street
Michigan Avenue from Grant Park
La Salle Street at the Stock Exchange
In the Stockyards
The Douglas Monument
Where the Lake Shore Begins
In Clark Street at Courthouse
Rush Street in the Old Residential Section
In Lincoln Park
The Skyline of Park Row
Lester G. Hornby (1882-1956) is one of the surprising number of early 20th century American artists who achieved great acclaim during their vital years and yet lived to see their works, during the ensuing decades, largely neglected. That condition is now being reversed for many of them.
Hornby received his early training at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Students League in New York. He then journeyed to Paris where he developed his technique further at the major art academies there. Hornby’s progress was rapid; he received his first international recognition in Paris in the prestigious Salon d’Automne of 1907.
Completely captivated by Paris and the French countryside, Hornby spent most of his productive years in France, returning intermittently to America. In his latter years, he played an active role as teacher and artist in the Rockport art colony, dying there at his cottage in 1956.