Lorado Taft (1860-1936): Art

While Taft held a regular teaching post at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his appointment at the University of Chicago was to the vaguely defined (and nontenured) position of "Professorial Lecturer on the History of Art." Taft declared that he considered himself "in some sort `Sculptor to the University of Chicago."'

While at Midway Studios, Taft was commissioned by the University to sculpt busts of George W. Northrup, Thomas C. Chamberlin, Silas Cobb, Sidney Kent, and Joseph Bond, and he also completed a marble bust of John Crerar that is now in the John Crerar Library. Much better known are his larger works, including Blackhawk at Oregon, Illinois, the Columbus Fountain, which stands in front of Washington's Union Station, and two Chicago commissions - The Fountain of the Great Lakes at the Art Institute of Chicago and The Fountain of Time at the west end of the Midway Plaisance. Completed in 1922, The Fountain of Time was intended as one in a series of bridges, monuments, and figures to stretch between Washington Park and Jackson Park. Taft derived inspiration for the sculpture, with its flowing line of humanity passing before a solid unmoving figure, from the sobering words of Austin Dobson's couplet: Time goes, you say? Ah no, alas, time stays. We go.

Taft conceived of himself as an "art missionary," and his conviction that art should support traditional social values helped foster his dislike for the modernist work he saw in Europe. He once said, "I cannot think of art as mere adornment of life, a frill on human existence, but as life itself."

At Midway Studios, the carriage house and connected buildings that he converted into a studio, dormitory, and cultural enclave, Taft gathered around him aspiring young artists who shared his cultural idealism. Living, working, and eating together at the studio, they created what was called a closer approximation "to the Renaissance bottega than anything else in our times." At the geographic periphery of the University, Lorado Taft's conviction and example made a unique contribution to its communal life.