RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
Columbian Half-Dollar Coins Plummet in Value
Coin Week on June 28, 2018, published an article on changes in the market value of collector’s coins from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. “The Rise and Fall of the Columbian Half Dollar: A Commemorative Story” by Q. David Bowers reports that 1892 and 1893 Columbian commemorative half dollars have fallen from a high of $3,850- $5,000 in 1990 to only $310 in 2018. The answer has more to do with general trends in coin collecting than anything specific about the 1893 World’s Fair. The article does note that “unlike 1990, today you can ‘visit’ the World’s Columbian Exposition [...]
July 1-Sept. 30, 2018: “John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age” at the Art Institute of Chicago
A new exhibit running at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has reunited a set of paintings by John Singer Sargent that were on display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age features approximately 100 objects from the AIC’s collection, private collections, and public institutions. Among them are four of the nine portrait paintings that Sargent exhibited inside the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition: • Mother and Child (Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis), 1890; on loan from the Los Angeles County [...]
John Singer Sargent at the World’s Columbian Exposition
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was one of the most talked-about American artists whose works were displayed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. “Mr. Sargent easily leads the portrait painters,” wrote Ernest Knaufft in his review of art at the Exposition. “We should dislike to pick out any separate example, but taking him in the aggregate, he becomes the ideal painter for painters.” Another contemporary review of the Columbian Exposition art display observed that: Nine out of ten of our younger artists of to-day, if asked to name the representative American portrait painter, would probably answer, John S. Sargent. And [...]
Aug. 9, 2018: A World of Innovation Exploring the Inventions and Engineering of the 1893 World’s Fair
The Chicago Engineers' Foundation (CEF) is hosting a Columbian Exposition event titled A World of Innovation: Exploring the Inventions and Engineering of the 1893 World's Fair on Thursday, August 9, 2018 from 12-1:30 PM at the Union League Club of Chicago. With a mission to encourage and empower the next generation of engineers, the CEF is one of the three foundations with a home at the Union League Club. A World of Innovation is part of a series of events in 2018 at the Club to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the World's Fair. We previously reported on their [...]
July 21, 2018: “World’s Fare” at Chicago Athletic Association
Experience Columbian cuisine on July 21 at “World’s Fare” held in the new pop-up bar at the historic Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) hotel. To celebrate the exhibition “John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age” running now at the Art Institute of Chicago, the CAA has created a Sargent-themed bar called “Dear Carmencita” (named after Sargent's 1890 painting La Carmencita in the exhibit), which is open from 5 pm to midnight between July 12 and August 5. On Saturday, July 21, the bar will host “World’s Fare” from 7 to 9 PM with food items that rose to popularity during [...]
Spirit of the 1893 World’s Fair in Journeyman Distillery’s new Field Gin
Raise your glass to the 1893 World’s Fair with a new spirit that delivers tastes and aromas from the Columbian Exposition's Agricultural and Horticultural buildings. Journeyman Distillery of Three Oaks, Michigan, has partnered the Field Museum in Chicago to celebrate the museum's 125th anniversary by creating Field Gin, a new small-batch spirit released in July 2018 and made using botanicals displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition. Field Gin from Journeyman Distillery. Among the Field Museum’s vast botany collection are some 1,500 historical botanical specimens from around the world that were displayed at the 1893 World’s Fair. Many [...]
Men Who Will Guard the Fair: Col. Edmund Rice and his Columbian Guard
Colonel Edmund Rice served as commander of the Columbian Guard, the security and safety force that performed policing and fire-patrol duty inside the grounds of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Erik Larson notes in The Devil in the White City (p. 138) that “unlike conventional police departments, the Guard’s mandate explicitly emphasized the novel idea of preventing crime rather than merely arresting wrongdoers after the fact.” Just prior to taking command of the Columbian Guard in May of 1892, Rice had been awarded the Medal of Honor on October 6, 1891. After the Fair, he served for another [...]
The Long Journey of the Norway Building
Tucked among some willow trees in the foreign building section in the northeast corner of the World’s Columbian Exposition grounds stood a striking structure made of massive pine beams. Built in the style of a medieval stave church, its gabled roof with carved dragons evoke the prow of a Viking ship. One of only a few surviving structures from the 1893 World’s Fair, the Norway Building has journeyed some 10,000 miles over the past 125 years. The building was constructed by M. Thams & Company (in less than 90 days!) during the winter of 1892-93 near Trondheim, Norway. After [...]
Velasco’s Valleys and Volcanos: Paintings of Mexico at the 1893 World’s Fair
An exhibit at the National Museum of Mexican Art this summer features the early artistic involvement and influence of Mexican immigrants in Chicago, beginning with the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Arte Diseño Xicágo: Mexican Inspiration from the World's Columbian Exposition to the Civil Rights Era runs through August 19, 2018, in the Main Gallery. Arte Diseño Xicágo Mexican Inspiration from the World's Columbian Exposition to the Civil Rights Era at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. The first section of the exhibit focuses on the 1893 World’s Fair and painter José María Velasco (1840-1912). One [...]
July-Sept, 2018: University of Kansas celebrates Dyche’s Panorama
Few full exhibits from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition remained intact after the close of the fair. A notable exception is the “Exhibit of Large North American Mammals” that was on display inside the Kansas State Building. The University of Kansas Natural History Museum is home to the display, which is the subject of a series of events this summer to celebrate its 125th anniversary. Professor Lewis Lindsay Dyche created the panorama to showcase the university’s natural-history and taxidermy collection and to “awaken a more general interest and teach valuable lessons on the natural history of North American mammals.” [...]