Refuse Salon
[William Waller House, Chicago (1874) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Soon after William Waller built this large home on Dearborn Avenue in 1875 the street was lined with mansions and row houses containing the kind of square footage that you would expect to find in the residences of wealthy individuals of the era. When the Palette and Chisel Club bought the building in 1921, the area had changed, and the artists who moved into the Waller house joined other "bohemians" who were turning the neighborhood into Chicago's Greenwich Village according to press reports.
[Palette & Chisel Academy, 1012 N. Dearborn Street, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Waller built his home soon after after the Chicago fire had decimated this north side residential community. His brother built a large house next door, and several other members of the Waller family had Dearborn Avenue on their calling cards. The Wallers were in real estate, and the name was still actively associated with Chicago property deals into the 1960s, by which time most of their homes along the avenue had been destroyed and replaced by other buildings or parking lots.
[Palette & Chisel Academy sculpture, Jack Beckstrom, artist /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
The Palette & Chisel Club started small in 1890 with just 8 members. Not long after the formation of their organization, the group made headlines when they staged an exhibit in response to the Art Institute's annual Chicago Artists exhibition, which had refused all of the member's submissions. Titled the "Salon de Refuse" the Palette & Chisel show was comprised of caricatures created by Club associates based on famous Art Institute paintings, or works that were included in the museum's Chicago exhibit. It caused quite a stir in art circles, and the Club continued to hold an annual Salon which coincided with the museum's annual display. By the time they moved from their downtown location in the Athenaeum Building and into the Waller house, the club had grown to over 400 associate artists and had moved up a notch in terms of the respectability standards set by the venerable Institute.
As time passed and old rivalries became distant memories, the Palette & Chisel soldiered on. Times were tough, especially in the early 80s when membership plummeted to near its founding number. But by 2010, with the Club designation having disappeared and replaced by Academy of Fine Arts, this surviving cluster of bohemians is thriving once again in their well preserved 136-year-old home, filled with artists and students creating paintings, drawings and sculpture in the last Waller left on the block.
See some other Dearborn neighbors from the Waller era at: Last Row Standing, and Dinner is Served.
Posted by designslinger at 12/2/2010 4:53 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Adaptive Reuse, Art, History
Tags: Chicago mansions Dearborn Parkway Italianate architecture Dearborn Street Chicago Fire aftermath Washington Square Historic District
Categories: Architecture, Adaptive Reuse, Art, History
Tags: Chicago mansions Dearborn Parkway Italianate architecture Dearborn Street Chicago Fire aftermath Washington Square Historic District
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