THE CHICAGO THEATRE
LOUIS GRELL · TWO MONUMENTAL COMMISSIONS
1921 & 1933
Thirty large auditorium murals commissioned across two major decorative campaigns
When the Chicago Theatre opened on October 26, 1921, Balaban & Katz promoted its new flagship as the “Wonder Theatre of the World.” Designed by the Chicago architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, the enormous State Street movie palace combined architecture, sculpture, furnishings, lighting and mural painting into one of the most ambitious entertainment interiors of its era.
Louis Grell was part of that environment from the beginning.
FIFTEEN MURALS FOR THE ORIGINAL 1921 THEATRE
For the original grand opening, Grell created fifteen large auditorium murals based upon French fairy-tale themes.
These were not paintings subsequently hung in a completed theatre. They occupied architectural fields incorporated into Rapp & Rapp’s immense auditorium, surrounding an audience of thousands and functioning as part of the fantasy environment for which the great American movie palace became famous.
Grell’s first Chicago Theatre commission was therefore monumental in both number and setting:
1921 · FIFTEEN LARGE MURALS · ONE OF AMERICA’S GREAT NEW MOVIE PALACES
And it was not his last commission there.
THEY CALLED GRELL BACK.
As Chicago prepared for the Century of Progress International Exposition of 1933–34, Balaban & Katz undertook a major redecoration of the Chicago Theatre.
Twelve years after the original commission, Grell was selected again.
The earlier French fairy-tale imagery was replaced by a second Grell cycle of fifteen monumental compositions, now devoted to Greek and Roman mythological subjects. Published architectural histories independently confirm the theatre’s World’s Fair-era redecoration and Grell’s return to repaint the auditorium program.
That repeat commission is one of the most revealing facts in Grell’s theatre career.
Balaban & Katz did not encounter his work for the first time in 1933. The organization had lived with his first monumental program for approximately twelve years—and then entrusted the same auditorium to him again.
1921
15 FRENCH FAIRY-TALE MURALS
1933
15 GREEK & ROMAN ALLEGORICAL MURALS
30 LARGE MURALS
TWO COMMISSIONS · ONE THEATRE · TWELVE YEARS APART
THE SPIRIT OF LIGHT
Dominating Grell’s second program is the enormous Spirit of Light, depicting Apollo driving his radiant chariot above the proscenium.
The composition is approximately 40 feet wide by 15 feet high, operating not at gallery scale but at architectural scale.
Around it Grell created a classical world populated by subjects including:
MINERVA · BACCHUS · VESTA · VENUS · MARS · HECATE · CALLIOPE · CHERUBS
Cherubic figures provide a particularly interesting continuity between the two commissions, appearing prominently within imagery associated with both Grell decorative campaigns.
THE SPIRIT OF LIGHT · LOUIS GRELL · CHICAGO THEATRE · 1933
Apollo drives his sun-drenched chariot above the Chicago Theatre proscenium. The monumental composition formed the centerpiece of Grell’s second auditorium mural cycle, commissioned by Balaban & Katz for the theatre’s Century of Progress-era transformation.
FOURTEEN REMAIN VISIBLE TODAY.
The original 1933 program comprised fifteen murals.
Today, direct examination and photographic documentation by the Grell research project identify fourteen of those large Grell compositions still visible within the auditorium.
The missing fifteenth composition occupied a smaller field at the rear of the house. That location is now occupied by a large control enclosure. Whether the original mural was removed during later alterations or remains concealed behind the enclosure has not yet been established.
15 COMMISSIONED IN 1933
14 REMAIN VISIBLE TODAY
1 REAR MURAL REMOVED OR CONCEALED
THE LOST SMOKING-LOUNGE MURALS
Historical photographs also document additional mural decoration in the Chicago Theatre’s men’s smoking lounge.
Those murals no longer survive.
They disappeared during subsequent alteration of the theatre’s secondary spaces and should be distinguished from the fourteen surviving auditorium murals.
The historical photographs nevertheless preserve another chapter of the building’s original painted environment. Based upon their visual relationship to Grell’s documented theatre work, they remain part of the continuing Grell research record.
THE MEN’S SMOKING LOUNGE · A LOST DECORATIVE INTERIOR
Period photographs preserve mural decoration formerly installed in the Chicago Theatre men’s smoking lounge. The murals themselves are gone; only the photographic record of this secondary decorative environment survives.
“The murals are lost. The photographs survive.”
THE GRELL ARCHIVE HAS EXAMINED THE SURVIVING PROGRAM IN PLACE
DOCUMENTING THE SURVIVING MURALS
The Grell research project has repeatedly examined and photographed the Chicago Theatre auditorium in person, with special permission from theatre management and MSG Entertainment. Fourteen Grell murals from the 1933 program remain visible today. A fifteenth, formerly positioned at the rear of the auditorium, is no longer visible at its documented location, now occupied by a large control enclosure.
A SURVIVING SPIRIT OF LIGHT
THE SPIRIT OF LIGHT · c.1929
Louis Grell · Gouache and watercolor
Grell Family Collection
Louis Grell, version of The Spirit of Light, c.1929. Gouache and watercolor, sight approximately 21 × 29 inches; original frame approximately 29 × 37 inches. The original architectural destination represented by this version has not yet been identified. Its Apollo-and-chariot conception provides an important surviving comparison with Grell’s later monumental treatment of the subject at the Chicago Theatre.
TWO COMMISSIONS. ONE SURVIVING LANDMARK.
The Chicago Theatre is especially important within Grell’s career because so many of the architectural interiors he painted have disappeared.
The theatre did not.
And neither did most of the second monumental Grell cycle.
More than a century after Grell’s first commission for the building, and more than ninety years after Balaban & Katz called him back for the Century of Progress transformation, fourteen of the fifteen large murals from his second auditorium program remain visible within the operating theatre.
The building itself remains a Chicago Landmark and an extraordinary surviving example of Rapp & Rapp’s movie-palace architecture.
1921
GRELL PAINTED THE CHICAGO THEATRE.
1933
THEY ASKED HIM TO PAINT IT AGAIN.
TODAY
FOURTEEN OF THOSE MONUMENTAL MURALS
STILL SURROUND THE AUDITORIUM.
The 1933 murals are: The Spirit of Light (shown above), Minerva, Bacchus, Vesta, Venus, Mars, Hecate, Calliope, and Cherubs.
Additional murals were painted in the mens smoking lounge believed to be by Grell and in his style based on the included photos.
This was Rapp & Rapp Architect’s fifteenth awarded project of 1919. The original conception name was the Capitol Theatre with plans drawn up in March and April 1920.
Above – a version of The Spirit of Light by Grell for an unknown location; watercolor c1929, detail & full image
Photographs taken at The Chicago Theatre, with special permission by MSG Entertainment and The Chicago Theatre management
Black & White Images courtesy American Theatre Architecture Archive, Theatre Historical Society of America
Color Images of inside the Chicago Theatre, courtesy of Dwight Harts Photography, Denver, CO
The Spirit of Light, Gouache and watercolor, c1929, sight 21″ x 29″ original frame 29″ x 37″ by Louis Grell, unsigned, Grell Family collection
Madison Square Garden history of the Chicago Theatre which mentions Grell as the artist.
