Despite the building’s landmark status, it’s easy to miss Louis Sullivan’s last work, a highly stylized two-story terra-cotta facade at 4611 N. Lincoln. Over the past several months the building has undergone subtle restoration on the outside and transformation on the inside to accommodate a gallery with collections that are unerringly appropriate.
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The building was commissioned in 1921 by William Krause as a music store with an apartment upstairs for his family. Krause hired his neighbor, William Presto, as the general architect, and Presto in turn chose Sullivan, who was then 65 and down on his luck, to design the storefront and facade. Presto had worked as a draftsman for Sullivan several years earlier, when Sullivan was designing a series of small but masterly banks in several midwestern cities.
Over the years, age and the elements have faded the terra-cotta. A precisely composed design has lost essential details: simple, elegant wood-and-glass doors and a single-pane display window were replaced by more practical elements; frail leaded-glass windows were obscured by frame windows and blinds that shifted the vertical emphasis to horizontal; and a large sign was hung perpendicular to the building to advertise the funeral business located there for 60 years. The artistry was easy to overlook.
Then there was the encounter with a curator at a “major Chicago museum” who was using a Wright chair as a paint-can stand in the basement. “He argued with me, saying it wasn’t worth anything–until I came back and showed him the picture of the chair from Wright’s Roberts House.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/John Sundlof.
