Lot 25: Louis Frederick Grell (American, 1887-1960)

Leda and the Swan. Oil on canvas, signed at the lower right corner and dated 1937, not framed. Louis Grell studied at the School of Applied Arts in Hamburg, Germany, and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Upon his return from Europe, Grell lived in New York before moving to Chicago when he was offered a job at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He worked as an instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for five years and at The Art Institute of Chicago for fifteen years upon being appointed instructor of commercial art in 1922. Grell was primarily known for his murals and portraits. His work was exhibited in Berlin, Munich, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. He won the Chicago Municipal Art League's prize for portraiture and the Harry Frank prize from The Art Institute of Chicago. He was a member of both the Chicago Association of Painters and Sculptors and the Chicago Galleries Association. Mural commissions include the Union Station and Mark Twain Hotel in St. Louis; the Fort Hayes Hotel in Columbus, Ohio; the Paramount Theater in Toledo, Ohio; and the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC. In 1959 he painted a large mural in The Peoples Church, Chicago IL. He also painted the murals on the ceiling in the Chicago Theatre. There are three murals in the 1926 Palace Theatre of Greensburg, PA, two of which have been restored. Grell worked and resided in the Tree Studio Building, built by Judge Lambert Tree in 1894. An architectural gem in the heart of Chicago, the Tree Studio courtyard was endangered by the expansion of the Medinah Temple, to which Mr. Grell and fellow artist Don Anderson chained themselves to the last remaining trees, ultimately saving them from the bulldozer; this was in the last year of the artists life at the age of 73. "