Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
Aaron Montgomery Ward was an American entrepreneur based in Chicago who made his fortune through the use of mail order for retail sales of general merchandise to rural customers. In 1872 he founded Montgomery Ward & Company, which became nationally known.
Ernest Martin Hennings (1886–1956) was an American artist and member of the Taos Society of Artists.
LeRoy Neiman was an American artist known for his brilliantly colored, expressionist paintings and screenprints of athletes, musicians, and sporting events.
Alvah Curtis Roebuck was the co-founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company with his partner Richard Warren Sears.
Edward A. Brennan was chairman of the board, president (1980–1995) and chief executive officer (1984–1995) of Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Robert Elkington Wood was an American military officer and business executive. After retiring from the U.S. Army as a brigadier general, Wood had a successful career as a corporate executive, most notably with Sears, Roebuck and Company. A Republican, Wood was a leader in the Old Right American Conservatism movement from the 1920s through the 1960s as well as a key financial backer of the America First Committee prior to the United States' entry into World War II.
SisterMaria Stanisia, S.S.N.D., was an American Catholic nun, artist, and painter, member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
George Croll Nimmons was an American architect. Nimmons was best known for his commercial work, which was primarily for Sears, Roebuck and Company, but he also designed several houses, including a Kenwood mansion for Sears' President, Julius Rosenwald.
Charles Banks Wilson was an American artist. Wilson was born in Springdale, Arkansas in 1918; his family eventually moved to Miami, Oklahoma, where he spent his childhood. A painter, printmaker, teacher, lecturer, historian, magazine and book illustrator, Wilson's work has been shown in over 200 exhibitions in the United States and across the globe.
Eugene Francis Savage was an American painter and sculptor known for his murals in the manner made official under the Works Projects Administration. He also is known for his work on the Bailey Fountain in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York, the mural Videbimus Lumen in the Butler Library of Columbia University, and the Alma Mater mural featured in the Sterling Memorial Library on the campus of Yale University.
Carl Frederik von Breda was a Swedish painter who studied in and spent much of his career in Britain before becoming painter to the Swedish court. He was born in Stockholm in 1759, and moved to Britain where he was a student of Joshua Reynolds. Breda specialized in painting portraits and was called "the van Dyck of Sweden". He returned to Sweden 1796 where he became professor at the Academy of Arts, a popular portraitist, and a court painter. Breda married at age 22 and his son, Johan Fredrik, was also a painter, who studied under his father. Breda died in Stockholm in 1818.
Albert Henry Krehbiel, was the most decorated American painter ever at the French Academy, winning the Prix De Rome, four gold medals and five cash prizes. He was born in Denmark, Iowa and taught, lived and worked for many years in Chicago. His masterpiece is the programme of eleven decorative wall and two ceiling paintings / murals for the Supreme and Appellate Court Rooms in Springfield, Illinois (1907–1911). Although educated as a realist in Paris, which is reflected in his neoclassical mural works, he is most famously known as an American Impressionist. Later in his career, Krehbiel experimented in a more modernist manner.
Archie R. Boe was a former president of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Allstate Insurance Co.
Joseph Allworthy was a prominent mid-twentieth-century American representational, tonal-realist painter based in Chicago, known for his still life compositions and portraits. He also did notable work in the field of commercial art and advertisements.
James Madison Barker was an American banker and business executive who worked for First National Bank of Boston, Sears, Roebuck & Company, and Allstate Insurance Company.
Louis Frederick Grell was an American figure composition and portrait artist based in the Tree Studio resident artist colony in Chicago, Illinois. He received his formal training in Europe from 1900 through 1915 and later became art professor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922, and at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1922 to 1934. Grell exhibited his works throughout Europe from 1905 to 1915, in San Francisco in 1907, and in Chicago at the Art Institute 25 times from 1917 to 1941. He exhibited in New York in 1915 and 1916 and in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Primarily an allegorical and figurative composition muralist and portrait painter, his creative strokes adorn the ceilings and walls of numerous US National Historic Landmark buildings.
Hans Knieper was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He became a court painter and tapestry cartoon designer at the Royal Danish Court and ran a tapestry weaving shop in Denmark.
Andrene Kauffman was an American painter and educator who created a mural for the post office mural project in Ida Grove, Iowa. She completed twenty-five murals and seven sculptures throughout Chicago, as part of the art projects for the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture. Later, she completed seventeen ceramic murals for the 3rd Unitarian Church, which was designated as a Chicago Landmark in 1960. In addition to her artwork and exhibitions, Kauffman taught art for forty-one years at various universities in Chicago, Rockford, Illinois and Valparaiso, Indiana.
William Peter Welsh (1889–1984) was a muralist, portrait painter, and illustrator from Kentucky as well as a soldier who served in both world wars and in the Mexican Border campaign with General Pershing in 1916. He died at age 95 in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. His mural painting Lexington Street Scene, October 1793 was at the Kentuckian Hotel on High Street and was recreated by the artist after its destruction and displayed at Hymon's Department store with prints also sold. His painting "Prisoner of War" is part of the Art Institute of Chicago's collection. He also painted murals for the Chicago Room of Palmer House and did a series of European style poster advertisements for Pullman sleeping cars. He won awards and recognition for the campaign. He worked in Illinois. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
