ILLINOIS HISTORICAL ART PROJECT
Arnold, Axel
BORN: 1871 Swedenii
DIED:
MARRIED:
TRAINING
ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT
TEACHING
RESIDENCES
TRAVEL
c.1905 Paris; Denmark; Norway; Sweden
Boston; New York
MEMBERSHIPS/OFFICES
HONORS
SELECTED JURIES SERVED
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Art Institute of Chicago, American Annual 1902, 1909
Art Institute, Chicago & Vicinity 1903, 1908iii
Moulton and Rickets Gallery, Chicago 1913iv
ONE, TWO OR THREE MAN EXHIBITIONS
1908 Toledo Museum of Art; Moulton and Ricketts Galleryv
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
INTERESTING NOTES
“Mr. A. Arnold has a tendency toward the eerie and weird, as his compositions reveal roads and streams under golden color bathed in a blue atmosphere. Blue and orange are the colors most favored... who took his sketches to Childe Hassam and Murphey... to know what he had accomplished.. This fearless procedure resulted in encouragement... Academic training has not been the means by which Mr. Arnold has acquired his progress...”vi
“Alexander Arnold is the blacksmith who follows his trade in the basement of the Auditorium and does the general blacksmithing for the hotels and building.”vii
iFor an interesting account of the discovery of this blacksmith artist, see: “Blacksmith – Artist Is A Great Painter,” Sunday Inter Ocean, 4/24/1910, p.9.
iiCatalogue of the Fifteenth Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Sculpture by American Artists, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 10/28/1902), p.11.
iiiHis Island of the Fay was illustrated in Giselle D’Unger, “Examples Of Paintings And Sculpture From Recent Exhibitions,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 19, March 1908, p.130.
ivHarriet Monroe, “An Early Rembrandt Masterpiece,” Chicago Tribune, 12/28/1913, p.G6. He was showing two landscapes that favorably impressed the critic.
vThe exhibit at Moultons was at the Toledo Museum first. Lena M. McCauley, “Art And Artists,” Chicago Evening Post, 12/28/1907, p.7.
viGiselle D’Unger, “Examples Of Paintings And Sculpture From Recent Exhibitions,” Fine Arts Journal, Vol. 19, March 1908, pp. 129-130.
vii“Blacksmith Whose Paintings Are Exhibited At the Art Institute,” Chicago Tribune 2/22/1903, p.44. His photograph appears in the article as well as a good description of the artist and his background.