16 Works, Today, January 18th is artist Gustaf Oscar Dalström's day, his story, illustrated #018

Gustaf Dalstrom, (1893-1971)

Great Indian Council, Chicago—1833, c. 1938

Mural

5' x 5'

Oil on canvas

Station Post Office, Chestnut Street Post Office

Gustaf Dalstrom (1893-1971) was an American artist and muralist. From 1927, he served as president of the Chicago Society of Artists. During the Great Depression he contributed several mural paintings to public schools and post offices through the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture.

Gustaf Oscar Dalstrom

COTTAGE ROOF TOPS

Etching

H-8"; W-9 3/4"

Private collection

Dalstrom was born January 18, 1893, in Gotland, Sweden and died in Chicago, 1971. He went to college at the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Street Scene, Chicago, 1931

Watercolor on paper

8 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches (framed 14 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches)

Private collection

After a short period in the Army, returned to classes with New York urban realists George Bellows and Randall Davey who were visiting instructors in 1919–20. These artists, who worked in a style accessible to Midwestern students, were important for their rejection of arbitrary academic rules still commonly taught at the institution; instead, they emphasized relying on one’s own instincts and painting what one knew. 

 Frances Foy, Gustaf Dalstrom's wife

Advent of the Pioneers, c. 1938

Mural 15' x 5'

East Lobby of Chicago Main Post Office, 433 W. Harrison Street. Commissioned by U.S. Department of Treasury, Section of Fine Arts, for the Chestnut Street Post Office

In 1928, along with Frances Foy, whom he married in 1923, and their artist friends Frances Strain and Fred Biesel and Hazel and Vin Hannell, Dalstrom traveled to Europe where he studied art intensively and visited his birthplace in Sweden.

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Landscape , ca. 1935

Tempera on Masonite

11 3/4 x 13 inches

Private collection

In his time at the Art Institute of Chicago, he received the Logan Award and Gold Medal for excellence. After attending college, Dalstrom painted in Sweden, France, Italy and Germany and focused on oil, watercolor, and graphic mediums of art.

Frances Foy, Gustaf Dalstrom's wife

Man Reading (Portrait of Gustaf Dalstrom), c. 1932

Etching on paper

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Dalstrom and Foy settled in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, in close proximity to the park, which inspired many of their paintings. In 1948 the Dalstroms had a joint show in which they exhibited forty-eight of their Lincoln Park scenes. 

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

The Bridges, South Pond (Lincoln Park) of 1924 

Oil on board

26 x 30 in.

I have no further description, at this time

The Bridges, South Pond (Lincoln Park) of 1924 depicts the range of leisure activities taking place in the park on a warm, sunny afternoon: strollers, boaters, and bench sitters, children and adults, gather in the park in a scene reminiscent of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Grande Jatte, which entered the Art Institute’s permanent collection in 1926. Like the New York urban realists he so admired, he glorified the activities of ordinary urban dwellers, whose clear simplified shapes suggest familiarity with both the urban shoppers of Kenneth Hayes Miller and the flappers of Guy Pène du Bois.

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Sunday in Lincoln Park

Sunday in Lincoln Park shows a family enjoying the day in a less crowded area of the park, in a composition that calls to mind Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Considering Dalstrom’s recent trip to Europe (including Paris), it is certainly possible that he was influenced by this famous Impressionist painting; while not contemporary modernism, nineteenth-century French Impressionist painting was extraordinarily popular with Chicagoans. Dalstrom’s scene, in contrast to Manet’s, has a fully clothed central figure and is much more akin to the scenes of New Yorkers such as John Sloan. Untitled (Spring dance) also evokes Bellows’s and Davey’s New York circle. In this masterful watercolor, Dalstrom conveys a joy in living in the bright color and deft brushwork, but grounds the image clearly in its Lincoln Park setting.

Dalstrom was the supervisor for the mural division and administrator for the Illinois Federal Art Project. As a supervisor, he met with potential sponsors to discuss ideas and potential artists to discuss logistics before any work had begun. Since Dalstrom was an established artist, he did not contribute work for relief. He was featured in numerous exhibitions during the twenties and all throughout the Great Depression.

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Untitled, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 11 7⁄8 in. (16.4 x 30.3 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Early Settlers Crossing a River, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 13 1⁄2 in. (16.5 x 34.3 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Railroad Station 1880, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 13 1⁄4 in. (16.5 x 33.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Horseless Carriage, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 13 1⁄4 in. (16.5 x 33.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Pony Express, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 13 1⁄4 in. (16.5 x 33.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

River Packet Ship, c. 1941

Mural study, St. Joseph, Missouri Post Office and Courthouse

Tempera, pencil and crayon on paperboard

6 1⁄2 x 13 1⁄4 in. (16.5 x 33.7 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Dalstrom completed many murals to support the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts in Illinois and Missouri, he created are: five for a public school, one for Highland Park, Chicago, and one for the De Kalb Public Library in De Kalb, Illinois. 

The mural for the De Kalb Library, completed in 1934, was critically acclaimed to be one of the finest mural designs shown in the last Chicago PWA exhibition May 20, 1934.

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Farming, c. 1938

Mural

Harper Elementary School, Wilmette, IL., United States

Gustaf Oscar Dalström

Gardening, c. 1938

Mural

Harper Elementary School, Wilmette, IL., United States

The Dalstrom Murals “Gardening” and “Farming” are from a local elementary school scheduled for demolition, to Harper School’s Auditorium.  The murals depict life in Wilmette in the 1930s when the town was still fairly rural.  In 2006, Dr. Sue Kick secured a Gripp Grant and raised funds to restore the murals to their original 1930s condition.

He also painted 9 murals for the state hospital in Manteno, Illinois and three more for Illinois Post Offices. One mural for a post office in Herrin, Illinois from 1940, was entitled, George Rogers Clark Conferring With Indians Near Herrin.

 Another mural was The Great Indian Council - 1833. In 1938, commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts for the Chestnut Street Post Office, where it hung opposite the mural by his wife, Frances Foy. 

An additional mural, The History of Transportation, painted in 1937 for the Lawson School in Chicago, Il and now on display at a law office in the NBC Building, is attributed to Dahlstrom due to stylistic similarities and his active participation in the Chicago WPA program. The signature was removed during restoration. More on Gustaf Dalstrom, Susan Weininger

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