The Oak Park Art League has an intimate connection to Ernest Hemingway. The league was championed by Hemingway’s mother, Grace Hall Hemingway — a painter who exhibited at art league shows numerous times, served on its board and was instrumental in raising funds to buy its permanent home in 1937.
The art league, along with various other Oak Park organizations, are collaborating with the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park as it sponsors its annual International Hemingway Conference this month. The league is hosting a “Moveable Feast” exhibit (based on the title of Hemingway’s memoir of his Paris years) from July 8 through Aug. 5, featuring artwork inspired by the author’s life and times. A small exhibit of five of his mother’s paintings, on loan from the Hemingway Foundation, will be an added attraction. The non-juried, open-call show will display works by amateur and professional artists alike. Prizes will be awarded to winning entries, judged by David Sokol, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“There’s a lot going on,” Art League Executive Director Julie Carpenter said. “It’s almost a three-ring circus.”
For example, the Oak Park Art League provided a Hemingway lookalike to sit for painters and sculptors during several of its recent figure-drawing classes. And at least one “Moveable Feast” entry, a painting by art league teacher and frequent exhibitor Kathy Hirsh, has emerged from those sessions.
“Sometimes paintings just fall off the brush, without a struggle, and this was one of those. When it was done and I stepped back, it seemed to have that ‘I’m going to go out and shoot something’ feel to it,'” Hirsh said with a laugh.
Other veteran Oak Park artists such as Oak Park Art League Board president Jennifer McNulty and portrait artist Robert Proce are expected to contribute works to the exhibit. Yet Carpenter said she’s equally excited to see what’s brought in by unfamiliar contributors such as St. Louis artist Sandy Kaplan, who has created a Hemingway sculpture series depicting him during various stages of his life.
“That’s part of what we do as a community art organization,” Carpenter said. “We feature emerging artists who might have never shown their work before as well as people who have been exhibiting art for decades — nationally and sometimes internationally.”
Carpenter has also arranged an “ARTIfact Invitational” exhibit — in this case, a large-scale sculpture by artist Margot McMahon featuring Hemingway at work around an actual Corona #3 manual typewriter (courtesy of Oak Park’s Pieritz Bros. Supply) of the type he used as a young author.
The art league will also be hosting several literary events along with “Moveable Feast,” including a July 11 discussion of Hemingway’s memoir by David Seleb, executive director of the Oak Park Public Library. Also a Junior Hemingway Writing Workshop July 9, where high-school age kids will respond to the exhibit, then return with finished pieces July 16 to compete for publication in The Write City Magazine. As well as an adult writers salon July 17, during which Carpenter hopes established writers will “gather, carouse and compose short responses to the exhibit — riffing with each other and having fun with the idea.”
Along with the league’s connection to Hemingway, Carpenter said she also felt motivated by the 95-year-old organization’s nearness to its 100th anniversary — and the possibility of redefining its role to a certain extent.
“Despite how long we’ve been here, nobody seems to understand what we are and what we do,” she said. “And I think that has a lot to do with the word ‘league’ which is a little obscure.”
As a result, the Oak Park Art League is mulling over the possibility of changing its name to the Oak Park Art Center and Museum, along with changing its programming somewhat to fit in with Oak Park cultural institutions of a similar vintage.
“We’re just two blocks from Hemingway’s birth home and also two blocks from Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, so we really look at ourselves as history partners to these other organizations,” Carpenter explained. “So, as part of our programming over the next three to five years, we are planning to connect more with them — and hopefully draw a more significant part of the tourism that occurs steps away from where we are.”
‘Moveable Feast’ art exhibit
When: July 8-Aug. 5
Where: Oak Park Art League, 720 Chicago Ave., Oak park.
Admission: Free
Contact: 708-386-9853; www.oakparkartleague.org
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