The Logan Medal of the Arts was an arts prize initiated in 1907 and associated with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frank G Logan family and the Society for Sanity in Art. From 1917 through 1940, 270 awards were given for contributions to American art.
The Medal was named for arts patron Frank Granger Logan (1851–1937), founder of the brokerage house of Logan & Bryan, who served over 50 years on the board of the Chicago Art Institute. He founded the Logan Museum of Anthropology at Beloit College where he was a trustee. [1] He and his wife, Josephine Hancock Logan, administered the award consistent with their patronage of the Society for Sanity in Art, which they founded in 1936, and the theme of her 1937 book Sanity in Art. The Logans strongly opposed all forms of modern art, including cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. It was not unknown for the Society of Sanity in Art to award a prize (e.g. in 1938 to Rudolph F. Ingerle) in competition with the official award by the exhibition prize committee of a prize the Logans had already sponsored. The Logan's were the in-laws of the renowned Chicago financier, Frank C. Rathje
The Logans sponsored several prizes in their name. The Mr and Mrs Frank G Logan prize was awarded to a jury-selected exhibit at the American Paintings and Sculpture Exhibitions held in Chicago, and a similarly named prize was awarded to a local artist at the annual Chicago and Vicinity Exhibition for a selected exhibit. Frank G Logan prizes were also awarded at exhibitions of prints by the Chicago Society of Etchers, the annual International Watercolor Exhibition and the annual International Lithography and Wood Engraving Exhibition, all held at the Chicago Art Institute. Logan prizes were also awarded by the Society for Sanity in Art at exhibitions in California. Recipients of these prizes are listed below.
Formerly awarded at the annual American Paintings and Sculpture Exhibition, Chicago
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
Formerly awarded at the annual American Paintings and Sculpture Exhibition, Chicago
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
Awarded at the annual American Paintings and Sculpture Exhibition, Chicago
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
Awarded at the Chicago and Vicinity annual exhibition
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
Awarded at the Chicago Society of Etchers exhibition
Awarded by the Society for Sanity in Art, California.
Charles Allan Grafly, Jr. was an American sculptor, and teacher. Instructor of Sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for 37 years, his students included Paul Manship, Albin Polasek, and Walker Hancock.
Albin Polasek was a Czech-American sculptor and educator. He created more than 400 works during his career, 200 of which are displayed in the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park, Florida.
Theodore Roszak was a Polish-American sculptor and painter. He was born in Posen, Prussia, now Poznań, Poland, as a son of Polish parents, and emigrated to the United States at the age of two. From 1925 to 1926 he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, In 1930 he won the Logan Medal of the Arts, then moved to New York City to take classes at the National Academy of Design with George Luks and at Columbia University, where he studied logic and philosophy.
Doris Emrick Lee was an American painter known for her figurative painting and printmaking. She won the Logan Medal of the Arts from the Chicago Art Institute in 1935. She is known as one of the most successful female artists of the Depression era in the United States.
The Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens or The Polasek is a historic site in Winter Park, Florida, United States. It is located at 633 Osceola Avenue on three acres overlooking Lake Osceola. On May 2, 2000, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Herbert Ferber was an American Abstract Expressionist, sculptor and painter, and a "driving force of the New York School."
The Society for Sanity in Art was an American artist's society whose members strongly opposed all forms of modern art, including cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism.
Joyce Wahl Treiman was an American painter. Her work ranged from "the impishly perverse and humorously paradoxical to the brilliant and profound." She was known as an excellent draftsperson throughout her career. She made several trips to Europe to study the old masters, and the human figure is central in her work. In her later paintings she is known to have inserted self-portraits.
Walter S. Arnold is an American stone carver and sculptor best known for his gargoyles.
Leopold Gould Seyffert was an American artist. Born in California, Missouri, and raised in Colorado and then Pittsburgh, his career brought him eventually to New York City, via Philadelphia and Chicago. In New York the dealer Macbeth established him as one of the leading portraitists of the 20th century and his over 500 portraits continue to decorate the galleries, rooms and halls of many of America's museums and institutions.
Frank Tolles Chamberlin was an American painter, muralist, sculptor, and art teacher.
The George D. Widener Memorial Gold Medal was a prestigious sculpture prize awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1913 to 1968. Established in 1912, it recognized the "most meritorious work of Sculpture modeled by an American citizen and shown in the Annual Exhibition." PAFA's annual exhibitions were open to all American sculptors, but an individual could be awarded the medal only once. Sculptors Paul Manship, Albin Polasek, Malvina Hoffman, Carl Paul Jennewein, Anna Hyatt Huntington, William Zorach and Leonard Baskin were among its recipients.
Peter Grippe was an American sculptor, printmaker, and painter. As a sculptor, he worked in bronze, terracotta, wire, plaster, and found objects. His "Monument to Hiroshima" series (1963) used found objects cast in bronze sculptures to evoke the chaotic humanity of the Japanese city after its incineration by atomic bomb. Other Grippe Surrealist sculptural works address less warlike themes, including that of city life. However, his expertise extended beyond sculpture to ink drawings, watercolor painting, and printmaking (intaglio). He joined and later directed Atelier 17, the intaglio studio founded in London and moved to New York at the beginning of World War II by its founder, Stanley William Hayter. Today, Grippe's 21 Etchings and Poems, a part of the permanent collection at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is available as part of the museum's virtual collection.
Nathaniel Kaz was an American sculptor who was born in New York City. His parents were musicians and moved to Detroit when Kaz was young. It was in Detroit when he began his art studies with Samuel Cashwan. After moving to New York, Kaz continued his studies at the Art Students League where he was trained by George Bridgman and William Zorach. In 1988 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1991. His son Eric Kaz is a musician and songwriter.
Forest Idyl is a bronze statue created in 1924 by Albin Polasek while he was head of the Sculpture Department at the Art Institute of Chicago. There are several copies of the three versions of this sculpture:
J. Theodore Johnson was an American artist and muralist. He was born in Oregon, Illinois, in 1902 and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1921 to 1925. He became an artist and instructor in life drawing at the institute from 1928 to 1929. He also taught at the Minneapolis School of Art and the San José College in California. He died in Sunnyvale, California, in 1963.
Jacob Getlar Smith was an American painter and muralist who worked mostly in New York City. Smith studied at the National Academy of Design in New York from 1919 to 1921.
Peter Howard Selz was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism.
The Spirit of Music also known as the Theodore Thomas Memorial, is an outdoor 1923 sculpture and monument commemorating Theodore Thomas by Czech-American artist and educator Albin Polasek, installed in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois.
Margo Hoff was an American painter.