Oliver Dennett Grover’s “Thy Will Be Done” won the Charles Tyson Yerkes prize in 1892 at the annual exhibition of the Chicago Society of Artists. In 1889 Grover was among the founders of the Society which was preeminent among the city's several art organizations. The Society's importance was magnified by the fact that the Art Institute of Chicago was founded only seven years prior and still in its infancy; the museum had no collections to speak of and very limited exhibitions.

The painting was subsequently shown in the Fine Arts Palace of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (catalogue #446). After the Fair closed in October, the work disappeared for one hundred and five years into a small upstate New York town. The painting had been purchased directly from the artist by Robert Lansing Mott of Champion, New York, in 1893. It hung in his home until his death in 1963. His niece sold the painting to a local collector, Kenneth Rowsam of West Carthage, New York, in whose home it then hung. In 1993, it was listed as "unlocated" at the time of the centennial exhibition Revisiting the White City, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The painting was recently discovered and purchased by the Illinois Historical Art Project

 Oliver Dennett Grover (1860-1927) was born and raised in the small rural town of Earlville, Illinois, and died a successful artist in Chicago. At his death he was called the dean of Chicago painters. Critic Eleanor Jewett said of him: “He was a polished gentleman, in the sincerest sense ... Gentle, generous, just, jovial, wise, cultured, kindly and always quested for beauty, Mr. Grover was as much unlike the ordinary (or extraordinary) type of artist as one could well find. As a painter he ranks among our foremost.[1]

Successful in most everything he attempted, he at various times was a painter of cycloramas; had an enterprising scenic and decorative painting firm in Chicago; was head of the painter's divi­ sion during the congresses of lectures at the World's Columbian Exposition (Grover also executed eight panels depicting the history of the customer in the Merchant Tailors' Building at the Fair); taught as a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago; executed building dec­ orations for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo; and created important murals in many of Chicago's buildings. He supervised the Midwest section of the United States Committee on Public Information, Bureau of Pictorial Publicity for patriotic posters during World War I. Educated and well-traveled, he maintained studios in Florence and Chicago. An influential man, he served as director or president of every major art organization in Chicago.[2] Grover was clearly one of the most important artists who ever worked in Chicago.

His father, a prominent local attorney, moved the family to Chicago where Grover attended secondary school. Despite early training at the Chicago Academy of Design, Grover was destined for the bar and entered Chicago University in 1877. (The institution was later renamed the University of Chicago in 1892). One year of prosaic study was enough for Grover to redouble his efforts to pursue an artistic career and he left for Munich, a highly popular destination for the art student coming from a strongly Germanic Chicago.

Arriving in the fall of 1879, he came immediately into contact with Frank Duveneck (1848-1919), one of this country's most important painters and teachers. Grover also met his future brother-in-law, Julius Rolshoven (1858-1930), who like Grover, became one of the "Duveneck Boys," a group of thirty young men who left Munich in early 1880, for Venice, to pursue their studies under the tutelage of Duveneck.[3] Grover was the youngest of the "Duveneck Boys," only twenty years old at the time. In Venice, Grover met James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) who had arrived there in September 1879 to complete a series of etchings for his publisher. Whistler later moved into the Casa Jankowitz, where several of the ''boys" were staying, in the Spring of 1880. Grover's interaction with the diminutive giant in Venice left an indelible mark not only on the young Chicagoan's painting but on the etchings and dry points he executed throughout the 1880s. (Figure One) Whistler's influence on Grover would last for almost two decades before the impact and tide of impressionism swept away his subject matter.

Grover left Italy for Paris in 1882 and entered the popular Académie Julian pursuing the then normal route of study with Gustave Clarence Radolphe Boulanger, Jean Paul Laurens and Jules­ Joseph Lefebvre. It was popular for midwestern artists, and particularly Chicagoans, to study in Munich or Paris. The Munich school favored dark tonal work which emphasized shadows and the harmony of deep colors. However, by the mid-1880s, Paris became the locale of choice as the professors there were developing a style which employed bright colors and the interplay of shadows and light. The Paris academy founded by Rodolphe Julian was the most popular of all. Here the French masters honed the painterly skills of students from Europe and America, who had brought with them solid foundations in drawing learned in schools of their home countries.

By the time Grover returned to Chicago in 1885, his work had been shown at the London Royal Academy, Paris Salon (Société des Artistes Français) and Munich International Expositions. He accepted a position as senior professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (Then located at the corner of Michigan and Van Buren, the site of today's Chicago Club). To earn extra income, he worked with a group of six other artists, including John Twachtman (1853-1902) and Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), on a monumental cyclorama, The Battle of Gettysburg. The subject of this epic battle was popular, and several cycloramas were made during this time by competing companies. (One may be seen today at the battlefield park.)

Financially secure, he married Marie Louise Rolshoven in February 1887. The years leading up to 1892 and the execution of Thy Will Be Done, saw a continued stream of successful mural and deco­ rating commissions which, combined with his important teaching position, garnered a strong reputation for the thirty-one-year-old Grover. Eminent Chicago artist Ralph Elmer Clarkson (1861-1942) later commented: "Grover ... impressed himself quickly upon the students ... by his vigorous handling of the head and the human figure... His work as chief instructor of the Art Institute did much to raise the character of that school."[4]

Thy Will Be Done represents the peak of Grover's achievements at a time when he was painting in a mode popular in traditional Paris ateliers of the era. A reexamination of this, his most famous work, one which is mentioned in every important biograph­ical entry on the artist, gives us a greater understanding of the prevalent modes of depiction used to create colorful drama for the late nineteenth century patron.

Contemporary commentary on Thy Will Be Done magnifies and dramatizes the overpowering impact this tragic human narrative would have had on the sensibilities of the late nineteenth century viewer, unexposed to the vast and rapid imagery of television and color print media:

“Oliver D. Grover sends a large picture of a single figure which is much more than a study. 'Thy Will Be Done,' is the title. It shows a young woman in black standing against a background of gray wall and a white curtained window. In one hand is a dispatch and the other is raised to her breast. The conflicting emotions of resentment felt for a misfortune which has just been made known and the pious resignation which follows are ably expressed…”[5]

A life-size figure of a girl in black, a telegram in her left hand, an envelope on the floor, the right hand clenched as with the birth of a firm resolve, a face of decided character, eyes clothed in sorrow tell the story of sad tidings, and despair drowned in the depths of derision, grief giving way before resignation.

The lone figure, a young woman, stands with eyes uplifted grasping a telegram in her left hand, right hand across her bosom, with a hastily discarded envelope lying at her feet on the floor. Although partially obscured by a high collared black Victorian dress of mourning, the woman is decidedly pregnant. The title Thy Will Be Done carefully leads the viewer to the conclusion that the Almighty has intervened in ways which cannot be known to mortal man or woman. Upon further contemplation the careful observer can only conclude she has lost the husband whose child she carries and soon will bear.[6]

Arrangement in Black and Grey No. 1: The Artist's Mother (Figure Two) represents Whistler's most famous foray into tonalism, a method he used in a series of paintings over the course of two decades in which the interplay of color became as important as the subject matter, represented best when a mood was created using muted tones. Whistler's use of grey and black was instrumental in the depiction of a quiet or somber effect. Whistler also actualized visual tension in many of his tonalist works through placement of a geometric object in the form of a curtain, rug or picture located carefully upon a wall near his subject.

Grover successfully employed these Whistlerean tactics in Thy Will Be Done. Such methods of interpretation came easily to the artist who had solid grounding in both the dark tones of the Munich style and the soft temperament and allegorical style of the Paris Salon masters.[7]

Grover's painting suggests a myriad of emotions; the deploy­ment of many compositional elements is designed to render the viewer heart-struck. Immediately drawn to the subject, the young widow's face is tenderly rendered and highlighted to depict both light and shadow, life and death. (figure) The use of light throughout the canvas is designed to illustrate the painting's complex theme. A visitor to the Fine Arts Palace in 1893 would question the vision of life which G-d holds for his young creation.

While to the right of the subject the wall is bathed in light, the imposing dress creates a dark curtain which blocks out all but a single ray emanating from underneath her right arm. In the treatment of the wall Grover has created additional anxiety through the change in light and the subtle shift in color. The small glimmer of light to her left is meant to show a form of hope and used to highlight the life represented by her pregnancy, which is indicated in the gentle protuberance in her otherwise somber attire. The moment in time depicted by Thy Will Be Done requires careful contemplation to fully resolve its message. While the title alone would lead any regular attendee of church to presuppose their maker had a hand in the woman's grief and resignation, upon further philosophical reflection, the viewer should come to understand that part of G_d's "will" is both to take and to give or bless. The loss of a husband is carefully crafted by the artist in her emotional face, mourning dress, crumpled message and discarded envelope. Yet G_d's entrance into the scene is visibly depicted in the form of light which pervades the drawn curtains and in the subtle knowledge of the viewer that it is His will which gives her yet a new life in her womb. And while the curtains are drawn closed, light shines through as His ever presence. None of this would have been lost on the late nineteenth century person of culture whose nature by today's standards we would consider sensitive, when in their own time such predilections would be normative.

Grover further used Whistler's tactic in the geometry of two windows. The left window ledge defines a horizontal plane between darkness and light, death and life, despair and hope as well as heaven and earth. The vertical elements of the left window further delimit light and darkness, made more pronounced by the placement of the figure's left shoulder. The magnified height of the canvas (182.9 cm, 71 in) and narrowed width (86.4 cm, 34 in) are designed to create a feeling in the viewer which intensifies thoughts of heaven in concert with her uplifted eyes and gently lifted head. The slight penumbra encircling her head adds further to the suggestion of G_d's presence and His control of both aspects of life, finality and renewal. This Presence gives hope to the expectant mother and more importantly, faith to the viewer whose own life may have all too often been touched by grief made more delicate by the precarious balance of mortality in the late nineteenth century.

Grover's reverence and admiration for his subject is evident in the convincing way he has conveyed the young woman's loss and hope. The grace she displays despite her grief is significantly enhanced by the interplay of resignation and faith. Although greatly saddened by her loss, she appears to have the strength and faith to accept the decision as a manifestation of the will of G_d. Such strength in the face of adversity would have enhanced the appeal of the painting for viewers who were sympathetic to the important strides many women were making as they approached the next century. In Thy Will Be Done, Oliver Dennett Grover has made a powerful statement about the strength of women and their ability to withstand daunting circumstances, while overlaying this with a margin of trust in the Almighty which was significantly higher than most would imagine today.

At the time this painting was executed and exhibited in 1892- 1893, the country was in a deep financial recession which was followed by the panic of 1893, resulting in a depression. Grover's piece may have had an added emotional impact upon the public who were quite downcast due to the country's severe financial condition. A businessman himself, Grover no doubt suffered from the effects of the grim economic downturn. When asked by Mr. Mott if he would sell a copy of the painting, Grover instead offered to sell the painting itself, knowing fully he would be parting with something he could have exhibited around the country to substantially widen his reputation. The economic depression must have brought Grover to the conclusion that selling the most famous painting of his career would be a sound decision. Little did he know it would disappear from public view for over one hundred years.

[1] Eleanor Jewett, "Art World Loses Notable Painter," Chicago Tribune, 2/27/1927.

[2] These positions included: American Arts and Industries Society (director); Art Association of Chicago (director 1900-1901); Art Institute of Chicago Alumni Association (president 1917-1918, honorary president 1922-1923); Art Service League (first president 1919); Art Students League of Chicago (president 1890); Chicago Society of Artists (founder, treasurer 1888-1890, secretary 1891-1894, president 1889- 1890, 1903-1904); Cliff Dwellers Club (charter member 1907); Municipal Art League of Chicago (director 1901-1907); Society of Western Artists (president 1905-1906); Western Art Association, Chicago (founder, president 1885-1886).

[3] Extensive research is available on the Duveneck Boys and on Frank Duveneck and his role as a teacher and leader of this group of artists. The text probably used by most scholars is Michael Quick, An American Painter Abroad: Frank Duveneck's European Years, (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1987), which provides a com­ plete list of the group from 1880, on p.49. The interested reader might also wish to see Elizabeth Wylie, Explorations In Realism: 1870-1880, Frank Duveneck And His Circle From Bavaria To Venice, (Framingham, Massachusetts: Danforth Museum of Art, 1989).

[4] Ralph Clarkson, "Chicago Painters, Past and Present," Art and Archaeology 12 (September-October 1921): 136-137.

[5] "A Conquest In Art. Exhibition by the Chicago Society of Artists," Daily Inter­ Ocean, 5/28/1892: 5.

[6] The King James Bible in Luke 11:2 reads, in part,"... Our Father which art in heav­ en, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth." Grover was married for five years at the time he executed this work. He and his wife Marie never had children and it was likely by this time they were not to be so blessed.

[7] Grover was soon writing about stylistic differences between European and American painters. For an example, see Oliver Dennett Grover, "American Art In Comparison With Foreign Art," Arts For America 8, February 15, 1899: 280, 283.