Art Institute of Chicago A/P #1 - Limited Edition of 5 Print

Christened the Robert Allerton Building in 1968, the original Neoclassic, Renaissance Revival styled building of the Art Institute of Chicago was constructed on Michigan Avenue at Adams Street in 1893. The print is a composite of two large pencil drawings of the Institute’s original 1893 structure, drawn in the mid 1995. The drawings show the Michigan Avenue entrance with its north wing and the left half of the southern side of its south wing. To highlight the beautifully carved ornamental details of its Beaux-Arts exterior taken from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, ten smaller drawings illuminate the historical text below. Originally constructed in a “U” shape, the Allerton Building was slowly filled in with new spaces by 1909. In the 1920's, plans were drawn up and executed for facilities on the east side of the railroad tracks with a connecting bridge. The Hutchinson Wing is later added along with the McKinlock Memorial Court, The Goodman Theater, and the Agnes Allerton Wing. In the 1950's after WWII, the Institute’s spaces were redesigned and reconstructed for new gallery, office, auditorium, curatorial, as well as many other spaces. The 1960's saw further reconstruction as well as renovation. One such space was the semicircular second floor Burnham Library of Architecture. In the 1970's, ground was broken for the School of the Art Institute, new facilities, galleries, and auditorium on Columbus Drive (‘74-’76); and reconstruction of the Old Board of Trade Trading Room and arch (‘77). The 1980's continued major renovation and restoration of large portions of the Allerton Building. At the same time, the Daniel and Ada Rice Building is constructed (‘85-’88), significantly adding to total gallery space. Most recently, the libraries have been expanded in the basement and the terrace and balustrade have been rebuilt on the south side. The Modern Wing, the newest addition designed by Renzo Piano, opened in 2009. "CLASSIC CHICAGO: THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE" With a superb sense of composition and space, while practicing excellent draughtsmanship and rendering, Jack Nixon documents grand and towering urban landscapes and vignettes of Chicago’s buildings, monuments, and decorative stone fragments that glorifies the city's late 19th and early 20th century Neoclassic, Gothic Revival, and Art Deco architectural styles. Displaying a new standard of old-world representation as a master of trompe l’oeil Realism with a concern for saving our most beautiful buildings and public sculptures, Mr. Nixon provides us a uniquely contemporary view of architecture as art. His very large and detailed graphite drawings are a direct response to his love for Chicago’s Loop, Grant Park, and North Michigan Avenue architectural and sculptural sites which he has depicted in the highest illustrative quality. Inspired by history's great 18th century Italian printmaker, Giovanni Battista Piranesi; the fine engravings of the Napoleonic multi-volume Description de l'Egypte (1809-1829); the imaginative mid 19th century École des Beaux-Arts watercolor and guache reconstructions of ancient Roman and Greek temples; and J.J. Audubon, Mr. Nixon has created a new portfolio of master original drawings and prints called: "Classic Chicago: the Art of Architecture." ARTIST STATEMENT As an environmentalist and urban preservationist, Mr. Nixon has devoted his life to improving our many differing terrestres, which includes supporting the use of renewable energies, recycling, and the restoring and saving our city’s best urban architectural, sculptural, and ornamental treasures. As a seasoned graphic designer, Jack weaves a visual story of classic Chicago architecture and sculpture in museum and art center exhibition that amplifies and focuses a visitor's perception of the city's stone, terra cotta, and bronze details that makes an unforgettable impression. Hopefully, that impression of architecture built between 1872-1929 will become a learning experience of what we have as public decorative art, and what we could lose, in our continuously changing cityscapes through the examination, documentation, and display of Chicago's most important urban sites. The artist has created work in the best and most dramatic fashion possible to create a powerful, inspiring, and thought-provoking exhibitions of finely cut edifices, ornament, and sculpture that will heighten our aesthetic sensibilities and continue our ongoing fight for a better environment. Architecture is the art that defines those sensibilities more than any other form of visual expression. Natural materials and elements of craftsmanship in ornament bring warmth and value to our urban surroundings. In the last six decades, an intensified interest in the preservation of our natural environment has evoked a broader understanding of environmental quality: environment is both natural and man-made. This expanded concept of environment is a recognition that buildings and neighborhoods should be preserved for reasons that go beyond historic or architectural significance. A sense of place and cultural continuity are increasingly accepted as genuine needs in American society. Equally widespread is the growing recognition that "quality of life" is intimately related to hospitable surroundings- in terms of scale, texture, and design of place. As we build structures of glass and steel that have few elements to celebrate our own humanity, we have grown to appreciate older buildings that relate more to us. This view of rich and valued place, or in the opposite sense, the rise against - or at least the awareness, defining, and naming of - "non-places" in contemporary culture is thoroughly expressed by French philosopher Marc Augé in "Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity" (1995). With the twentieth century's "progress" of an austere cost-per-square-foot architectural sensibility, Augé coined the phrase "non-place" to refer to anonymous, utilitarian, and visually lackluster spots of transience that do not hold enough aesthetic significance to be regarded as "places." Examples of non-place where people lose a sense of value and identity (that might otherwise be considered a destination of splendor in and of itself) would be a nondescript hotel, shopping mall, office building, "box" store, or airport. "The world has seen the fusion of architecture and arts and crafts in the caves of Lascaux, the tomb of Tutankhamun, the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis, the myriad Baroque cathedrals of Europe, and the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 [(with apologies to Louis Sullivan)]. After many decades of an austere, international modern movement were "Less is more," architecture today is returning to a more conscious collaboration between the artist, [the artisan,] and the architect." Art in Architecture: The Collaborative Spirit of the Interwar Period in Detroit, 1919-1941, Tawny Ryan Nelb, Archivist and Historian. Conservation, renovation, and restoration of fine, older buildings adorned with marble, granite, limestone, brick, and terra cotta have served to help save our many aging urban environments. But, with little graphic re-enforcement, how could the education, awareness, and appreciation of America's classic architecture be manifested more concretely to the public - as well as being influential for new construction? Hopefully, Mr. Nixon can be a part of that urban influence and education by artistically documenting and exhibiting the best examples of our past to help create a more stable and harmonious future.