GONE FISHIN.

I'll be on a much needed vacation through 08.04. Batchawana Bay and Michipicoten Harbor. It doesn't get much better......

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THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Hermon Atkins MacNeil

This is the fourth and final restored panel to reappear on the Marquette's East Facade. I hate to say that there are NO MORE. (This series of Marquette posts has been great pleasure.) Spectacular work, by Hermon Atkins MacNeil and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. Thank you.

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Passing Two Leagues Up the River, We Resolved to Winter There +++ Being Detained by My Illness

THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Amy Aldis Bradley. "The Vision."

So, Amy said, "Hermon, this is what Father Marquette looked like." And Hermon said, "Amy, you've got to be kidding........." Discussions like this, that most certainly took place, are gone forever. We are, however, left, with Amy's "Vision." And a sense of "entre nous" humor that we will never never quite "get. " (And if you think this needs explanation -- take a look at the white guy with a mustache dressed up like an Indian in the Tiffany mosaics.)

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FATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE. by Amy Aldis Bradley

If anyone knows more of the real story, or even knows of speculation, PLEASE COMMENT.

THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Hermon Atkins MacNeil. A Cast of Characters

The Richness and Depth of Hermon Atkins MacNeil's panels at the Marquette Building is easily overlooked. But each is filled with characters, action and detail. Below is the third panel featured here, newly restored and returned to its proper place.

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IN VAIN I SHOWED THE CALUMET +++ TO EXPLAIN THAT WE DID NOT COME AS ENEMIES.

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Look at Father Marquette's Haircut! I have a suspicion that Amy Aldis Bradley may have pulled some strings here (The Building's Developer, Owen Aldis was her brother.). The good father looks a lot like HER sculptural depiction above the elevators in the Marquette's main lobby.

THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Another restored panel.

"To Follow Waters +++Which Will Henceforth Lead us into Strange Lands."

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The Marquette Restorations just keep getting better. The full impact of the replaced window frames is now evident. And will be a future subject of CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE in the Loop.

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THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Opposites

The Marquette Building was completed in 1895. Twenty years had passed since the Battle of Little Bighorn. And the passing of the the American Indian had, by then, become on object of confused Romanticism. The Fort Dearborn Massacre was still a story Chicago grandparents told their grandchildren. (Bad Indians!) But the country now stretched from Ocean to Ocean. And the time of Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet hiking a bucolic Chicago River --helped along by Native Americans -- was, surely, regretfully, gone forever.

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Hermon Atkins MacNeil met Black Pipe, of the Lakota Sioux on the Midway in 1893. This Indian, who had seen the last of the open prairies, performed at Wild Bill Cody's Wild West Show at the Chicago World's Fair and stayed in Chicago after the Fair to work and model for MacNeil. His rough features, often repeated in MacNeil's work, are contrasted here with the delicate images of two children. Both gain from the proximity.

THE MARQUETTE BUILDING. Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Post 1

Rarely have I been so impressed with a Restoration. Today I noticed that the first two panels memorializing Father Marquette by sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil have been quietly reinstalled on the East Facade of Holabird and Roche's Marquette Building. Longterm credits are due the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for their care and preservation of the Marquette. Today, more "thank-you's" are due. This careful, thoughtful work is spectacular. Kudos are also due the preservation artist -- I hope to have credit s here shortly.

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Below are vignettes from "The De Profundis was Intoned +++ The Body was then Carried to the Church."

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Hermon Atkins Macneil was born in 1866 and died in 1947. He was a contributor to the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Another work, "The Sun Vow" is displayed in Hammond Beeby Babka's elegant Sculpture Court in the Daniel F and Ada L Rice Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. More to follow.