Louis Frederick Grell (1887-1960)

The Official Website and Internet Museum of Painter and Muralist Louis Grell

Join The Grell Family in Celebrating the 125th birth year of Louis Grell

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, OMAHA EXHIBIT DATES JANUARY 17 THROUGH FEBRUARY 20, 2014. see Upcoming Events page

Cincinnati Enquirer "Art All Around US" Netherland Plaza & Carew Tower photos 16-29 are on Grell

January 20, 2013 article from Cincinnati Enquirer on Louis Grell murals inside the Netherland Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati

* BELOW - LOUIS FREDERICK GRELL CAREER HIGHLIGHTS - BELOW*

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHS

Chicago, IL ca 1917 (L-R) Walter Ufer, Carl Hoeckner,E. Martin Hennings, Louis Grell

Tree Studio Artist Colony ca 1919 Chicago, IL outside Tree Studio building

Louis Frederick Grell was primarily a Muralist and Easel Painter focusing specifically on figure composition and portrait painting. Grell was an art instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922 and at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1922 to 1934. From 1917 through 1941, Grell exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago 25 times earning top honors for figure composition and portraiture. Grell studied at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris for a short period before returning to America in 1915.

The renowned Walt Disney was a student of Grell's at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1917 and 1918.

Grell enjoyed resided at the famous Tree Studio Artists Colony in Chicago's near north side from 1917 until his death in 1960 with many other famous American artists. Grell's murals adorn the ceilings and walls of more than 75 architecturally significant National Historic Landmarks across America.

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Chicago Theater
"Apollo"
50' x 20'

Grell painted his first mural in the US in 1907 in Salt Lake City depicting the Mormons entering the great Salt Lake basin titled "This is the Place" and his last know mural in 1959 titled "Keep Looking UP" which, even today, stands tall above the main altar inside the historic Peoples Church of Chicago. Other remaining important allegorical masterpieces can still be seen inside numerous National Historic Landmarks across America, including fourteen inside the Chicago Theater, two of three uncovered inside the Palace Theater in Greensburg, PA, the old Pick-Ohio in Youngstown, OH has a large depression era mural as you walk into the lobby now the Metropolital Housing Authority, the City of Detroit Water Board building lobby and Board Room murals and the Lift for Life Academy in St. Louis MO. Additionally, fifty-eight over life-sized figures can be seen inside Notre Dame de Chicago, the Netherland Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati boosts eighteen murals scattered throughout different exotic locations, the entire ceiling inside the Assumption Catholic Church Chicago was painted by Grell, the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church-Chicago has three murals in the entry hall and two large allegorically significant, Pioneer and Indian themed murals, can be found at St. Johns Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin. Eighteen different locations have been photographed with Grell murals still inside today

AN ONGOING EFFORT - Recent research efforts have discovered historically significant murals inside the wonderful Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Village of Springville, NY townhall, Town of Persia, NY city hall and the impressive Paramount Theatre in Aurora, IL may have been entirely decorated by Grell.

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"Tree Studio Courtyard"
1959 Oil on Canvas
Resident Artists
22" x 18"

At Tree Studio art colony, from 1917 until 1960, Grell associated with some of America's brightest and most celebrated artistic talent of the first half of the 20th century.

Neighbors included; "Tarzan and Jane" illustrator J. Allen Saint John, actor Burgess Meredith, sculptor Albin Polasek, artist Macena Barton and her NUDES, artists John and Anna Stacey, Taos artist E. Martin Hennings, (Louie exhibited on numerous occasions with Taos artists Hennings, Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins), George Ames Aldrich, Paul Bartlett, John D. Brcin, Frances S. Badger, Boris Ainsfield, Walter C. Brownson, Louis Betts, Nicholas R. Brewer and Adrian L. Brewer, Karl A. Buehr, Edgar S. Cameron and Marie Gelon Cameron, Ethel Lewis Coe, Walter M. Clute, Peter Diem, John Doctoroff, Richard Florsheim, Ruth Van Sickle Ford, Gerald A. Frank, Frederick Freer, Rowena C. Fry, Frederick M. Grant, Oliver Dennett Grover, Indiana Gyberson, Frank B. Hoffman, sculptor Maximillian Hoffman, muralist Charles Halloway, Antoinette B. Hollister, Donald J. Anderson, Lucie Hartrath, Natalie S. Henry, Edward G. Holslag, Marya Lilien, Harry Millhauser, sculptor Michael Thomas Murphy, O. Irwin Myers, Anna Lynch, fellow muralist John W. Norton, Arvid Nyholm, Sam Ostrowsky, Lawton S. Parker, Edgar A. Payne and Elsie P. Payne, Rudolph Pen, Andrew Rebori, Henry Reuterdahl, Wellington J. Reynolds, Louis Rittman, Romolo Roberti, Jim Romano(who hung the original sketch of "Jane" by Louie above his door), Edgar Rupprecht, author and artist Gordon Saint Clair, John Singer Sergent, George J. Seideneck, Marshall D. Smith, George Sotos, Antonin Sterba, sculptor John David Storrs, Allan L. Swisher, Julia Bracken-Wendt, Charles Sneed Williams, sculptor Emil R. Zettler, Harold Welch and his "Tony the Tiger" was first a student then a neighbor of Grells and impressionist Pauline Palmer.

Many believe Tree Studio Artist Colony to be the oldest and most respected resident artist colony in America producing America's top creative talents since 1894.

Mrs. Bertha Palmer
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Chicago Fashioned sketches by Louis Grell

Ladies fashion from 1855 to 1930 by Mandel Brothers 75th anniversary.

Grell had a strong connection with some of the founding members of the Taos Artist Society. In Munich, Grell was a member of the American Artists Club with E. Martin Hennings, Walter Ufer, Carl Bohnen and Victor Higggins. When America joined World War I, they collectively relocated to Chicago and exhibited extensively together. E. Martin Hennings lived at Tree Studios near Grell for many years. Hennings, Ufer, Grell and Higgins exhibited together throughout Chicago in the early part of the 20th Century on numerous occasions in Oak Park, at the Art Institute of Chicago and galleries around the city. Recently we have learned that Grell paintings exhibited in Santa Fe and several pieces have sold their since his passing in 1960.

In 1960, when Grell was 72 years old, he and fellow resident artist Donald J. Anderson chained themselves to the last remaining "trees" at Tree Studio in an act of heroism and bravery to help save the building from bulldozers.

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