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Summary
Jean Crawford Adams (1884-1972)
Chicago River, 1922
Oil on canvas
Illinois State Museum, 1929.60.643, museum purchase, Illinois Academy of Art
Jean Crawford Adams was born in Chicago in 1884. Adams began her training at the Art Institute of Chicago, continued her studies at the Provincetown School of Art in 1920, and finished in the 1920s in Paris. Throughout her career, Adams painted still-life and landscapes, acceptable subjects for a woman artist of her day, but her scenes of Chicago are what memorialize her.
This early painting from her career reflects how she interpreted the modernism of her day, emphasizing the smoky light of the industrial landscape along the Chicago River. The pale-yellow sky and purple haze shrouding the warehouses along the river suggest a morning view, a brief quiet before the bustle of the day begins. She painted in a bold style of simplified flattened form, distorted perspective, and striking color to capture “the hustle and turmoil of this great windy city.” The city was her muse.
Item Duration at Mansion
Temporary