Louis Grell’s Murals for the Paramount Theatre, Fort Wayne, Indiana
The Paramount Theatre in Fort Wayne, Indiana, opened on October 3, 1930, with two monumental murals by Louis Grell installed in its grand lobby. Period photographs preserved by the Theatre Historical Society of America document the murals in their original architectural setting and have made it possible to reconnect this largely lost commission with drawings and related works preserved elsewhere.
A closer examination of the mural on the left has revealed what may be its original title: SINFONIA PROFUNDA, or “Profound Symphony.” The words appear on a small sign held by the child in the upper-right portion of the composition. The discovery provides a possible identity for a mural that had previously been known primarily through photographs and surviving studies.
The scale was considerable. A surviving photograph shows one of Grell’s assistants standing beside a nearly full-size drawing for the composition. Comparison with the installed mural indicates that the work was approximately 30 feet high. Grell employed teams of assistants on his largest architectural commissions; at times, as many as eight assistants worked with him on major mural projects.
A Mislabeled Record at the Art Institute of Chicago
A black-and-white reproduction of the completed mural, together with a photograph of the large preparatory drawing, survives in Grell’s artist file at the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago. Significantly, the material is filed as relating to the Toledo Paramount Theatre. Comparison with period photographs supplied by the Theatre Historical Society of America, however, identifies the finished mural as the composition installed in the Fort Wayne Paramount.
The preparatory drawing has also been reproduced by the Illinois Historical Art Project. Its composition bears a notable relationship to Grell’s large painting Destiny, associated with the Harry Frank Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930.
The archival photographs therefore do more than document a lost mural. They reconnect a surviving Grell study—and an apparently mislabeled institutional record—with its original architectural setting.
Allegory Rising and the 1932 Watercolor
A related Grell work, dated 1932, introduces another intriguing question.
Executed in gouache, watercolor and tempera and measuring approximately 36½ × 19¾ inches, the work has been known under the alternate title Allegory Rising. Its composition corresponds closely to the monumental Fort Wayne mural, yet careful comparison reveals differences. Among them, the child in the 1932 work does not hold the small title sign visible in the Fort Wayne composition, and the celestial circle appearing near the feet of the principal lower figure in red differs between the versions.
Because the Fort Wayne Paramount opened in 1930 while the watercolor is signed and dated 1932, the watercolor cannot simply be assumed to be the original preparatory design for the theater mural. Several possibilities remain. Grell may have produced another version of the composition for a later commission, or the 1932 watercolor may have served as a subsequent studio record or reinterpretation of the monumental 1930 Fort Wayne design.
At present, the surviving evidence establishes the close relationship between the works but does not resolve precisely why Grell returned to the composition in 1932.
Harlequin and Shakespeare and the Second Fort Wayne Mural
The Paramount’s second monumental Grell mural occupied the right wall of the stairway leading from the lobby toward the auditorium mezzanine. Period interior photographs preserve portions of this composition in its original setting.
Those visible passages bear striking similarities to another Grell drawing titled Harlequin and Shakespeare, now preserved in the Grell family collection. The relationship raises the possibility that the surviving drawing is connected to the imagery Grell developed for the second Fort Wayne mural.
Taken together, the period theater photographs, the Ryerson & Burnham material, the 1932 watercolor and Harlequin and Shakespeare are beginning to reconstruct a major Grell commission that disappeared with the Fort Wayne Paramount itself.
What survives is fragmentary—but enough survives in separate archives and collections to begin putting the room back together.
Object information
Allegory Rising
Louis Grell
Gouache, watercolor and tempera
Signed and dated 1932
36½ × 19¾ inches
Alternate title: Allegory Rising
Image credits: Black-and-white exterior and interior photographs of the Paramount Theatre, Fort Wayne, Indiana, courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America. Black-and-white reproduction of the finished mural and photograph of the monumental preparatory drawing courtesy of the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago.
