Robert Wadsworth Grafton timeline
Grafton, Robert Wadsworth[1]
BORN: December 19, 1876 Chicago
DIED: December 17, 1936 Michigan City, IN
MARRIED: July 27, 1908 Elinda M. Oppermann of Michigan City, IN (deceased 1935)
TRAINING
Primary and secondary schools, Chicago
1894, 1905-1906 Art Institute of Chicago, evenings
1899 Académie Julian
1908, 1911 Englandand Holland
ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT
1912 Mural, Rumely Hotel, La Porte, Indiana[2]
1912 Cover illustration of his painting of George Ade, American Art News[3]
c.1915 Mural Battle of Tippecanoe, Fowler Hotel, Lafayette, Indiana
c.1916 Anthony Hotel, Fort Wayne, Indiana[4]
1917 Murals The Start and The Finish, Men’s Café, St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans[5]
1918 Murals, Allen County Court House, Ft. Wayne
1918 Three murals, legislative balconies, Commerce, Agriculture, Industry, Illinois State House[6]
1923-1924 Murals The Builders of Ft. Wayne, The Canal Period, Traders, First National Bank of Ft. Wayne[7]
1925 Portrait commission, St. Mary’s Hospital, Madison, Wisconsin[8]
1925 Mural, Assembly Room, Michigan City, Indiana High School, scenes from the 1840s[9]
1926 Mural, Marquis de Lafayette Specialty Elementary School, Chicago[10]
1928 Mural, Kansas Wesleyan University[11]
1935-1936 Portrait commissions, Saddle and Cycle Club[12]
Mural, Tulane University
1936 Mural, Culver Military Academy[13]
[1]See Mary Q. Burnet, Art And Artists of Indiana, (NY: The Century Co., 1921), pp.297-299.
[2]Letter from Emmet Rumely to M. J. Sparks, 1/21/1970. These murals were painted in Paris and broght back by Grafton for installation in the Hotel. He was the nephew of mr. Wadsworth, former publisher of the LaPorte Argus and the commission eminated from this relationship.
[3]Vol. 10, January 6, 1912.
[4]“Robert W. Grafton,” Annual Report of the Artists’ Guild, (Chicago: The Artists’ Guild, 1917), p.21.
[5]Times Picayune, 2/18/1917, p.8. He worked with fellow artist and friend Louis Oscar Griffith on this mural. In 2006 Neal Auction Company of New Orleansput the mural up for sale.
[6]This commission was part of the Illinoiscentennial celebration, see: Mark W. Sorensen, Illinois State Archives, “A Brief History Of The Art In The Illinois State Capitol,” typescript, 6/24/1996.
[7]“Murls for Fort Wayne,” in “News of the Art World,” supplement, Chicago Evening Post, 2/12/1924. Palette & Chisel, Vol. 1, No. 2, March 1924.
[8]The work, Mother Mary Odilia, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 6/16/1925, p.7.
[9]“Mural for School at Michigan City,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/1/1925, p.12.
[10]Illustrated and discussed in Heather Becker, Art for the People, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002), pp.64, 143-144.
[11]Lena M. McCauley, “Club Hangs Coolidge Portrait by Grafton,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 1/22/1929, p.3.
[12]He was recreating the 225 portraits lost in a fire. “Robert Grafton, Noted Portrait Painter, Is Dead,” Chicago Tribune, obit., 12/18/1936, p.43.
[13]Op. cit., Chicago Tribune, obit., 12/18/1936, p.43.