CHICAGO ARTIST AND HISTORIAN
KRISTA AUGUST

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017
5:30 - 8:30 pm
The Lounge at Iwan Ries
19 South Wabash Ave



Cocktails at 5:30, with the presentation at 6:00 for about thirty minutes, followed by Q&A and general cocktail conversation.
Reservations are required.

Krista August will lead the Cigar Society on a virtual tour of the seventeen monumental portrait statues in Lincoln Park -- including those of Lincoln, LaSalle, Grant, Sheridan, Schiller, Goethe, and Altgeld -- and discuss their artistic and historical significance. Ms. August holds degrees from Northwestern and  DePaul, and has studied art at the Old Town Triangle Association, the Palette and Chisel, the Peninsula School of Art, the Richerson School of Art, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of Giants in the Park: A Guide to Portrait Statues in Chicago's Lincoln Park.  This book was awarded Chicago Writers Association 2011 Book of the Year and Illinois State Historical Society 2014 Certificate of Excellence.

Ms. August writes: "Giants encountered with this virtual walking tour will include Lincoln, LaSalle, Grant, Sheridan, Schiller, Goethe, Altgeld ... seventeen portrait statues in all. Missing monuments and salient park history will be documented as well. Lincoln the Man is the most important statue on the tour and is a masterpiece of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the ranking American sculptor of his era. Saint-Gaudens's Lincoln was groundbreaking when unveiled in 1887. With the inclusion of the classical chair behind the standing Lincoln and with its elaborate base designed by architect Stanford White, it is much more than the typical portrait statue. Of all the park's monuments, our LaSalle bronze is the most significant to Chicago's history. At it's unveiling in 1889, LaSalle was celebrated as the man "to whose geographical discoveries American civilization owes a heavy debt." After being the first white man to travel the full length of the Mississippi River in 1682, LaSalle returned to the Chicago portage the following winter, where in his journal, he predicted the rise of a great city. The history behind each and every monument is unique and exciting.

Throughout the tour, we'll find interesting connections to a wide variety of topics and early Chicago personalities: the Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Haymarket affair, the Great Chicago Fire, the Civil War, early Chicago ethnic groups, the park's cemetery years, Charles Yerkes, Frances Willard, Mayor Carter Harrison and much more. Lincoln Park's monumental art invites us to explore the old: to study the heroes of our Chicago forefathers; and through examining the realization of their likenesses, to glimpse moments and ideals from our great city's youth.