c1930 design for a movie palace in Chicago

This drawing once hung in Grell’s Downers Grove (IL) summer home where he and Friedl would escape the summer heat of downtown Chicago. The oil on canvas version once hung on the wall of Grell’s home at Tree Studios, Chicago.  Look for the colorful Nautch dancer, the Maharadja or the Hindu priest “clad in the customary yellow robe.”  Grell wrote a detailed letter to his relatives in Lincoln (NE) describing this piece in wonderful artistic prose.

watercolor and gouache, 22.5″T x 21″W signed l/r “L. Grell” private collection