at the dedication of South Side Community Art Center (May 7, 1941) Efforts to open a community art center on Chicago's South Side began in 1938. Peter Pollack, a
Federal Art Project official, contacted Metz Lochard, an editor at the
Chicago Defender, about having the Art Project sponsor exhibitions of African American artists, who often had trouble securing space to display their work. Pollack, an art dealer, owned a gallery on
Michigan Avenue in
Chicago's Loop and had previously shown the work of African American artists. Lochard arranged a meeting between Pollack and Pauline Kigh Reed, a social worker with extensive connections in the community, and, according to Reed's recollection, she suggested founding an art center. Reed helped arrange an initial meeting with area artists at the South Side Settlement House at 32nd Street and Wabash Avenue. Businessman Golden Darby, chairman of the board of the Settlement House, became chair of the Sponsoring Committee of the proposed South Side Community Art Center. Darby chaired the first official meeting of the Sponsoring Committee on October 25, 1938, at the offices of the Chicago Urban League. In addition to Darby, Pollack, and other organizers of the Sponsoring Committee, the meeting was attended by members of the Arts Crafts Guild, a group of Chicago-based African American artists organized in 1932 which included
Margaret Taylor-Burroughs,
Eldzier Cortor, Bernard Goss,
Charles White, William Carter,
Joseph Kersey, and
Archibald Motley Jr. George G. Thorpe, the State Director of the Federal Art Project of Illinois, informed the group that the FAP's community art center program would provide an administrative staff, faculty, and renovation funds for a center if the community could raise funds for the purchase of a building and the costs of utilities and supplies. The following year was spent organizing and raising funds for the center, with efforts ranging from membership drives and street corner collections (including Margaret Burroughs's famous "Mile of Dimes" on South Parkway, (now Martin Luther King Drive) to benefit parties and lectures by speakers including
Augusta Savage. The most successful of these events, the Artists' and Models' Ball held at the Savoy Ballroom on October 23, 1939, became an annual tradition. Its alumni are
Charles White,
Bernard Goss,
George Neal,
Eldzier Cortor,
Gordon Parks,
Archibald Motley,
Richard Hunt, and
Margaret Burroughs.
Building Completed in 1893 at 3831 S.
Michigan Avenue, the
Georgian Revival-style building designed by architect L. Gustav Hallberg initially served as a residence for
grain merchant George A. Seaverns Jr. and it was described as the former home of
Charles Comiskey by
Eleanor Roosevelt in her newspaper column after she took part in the dedication of the South Side Community Art Center. According to UNCAP, the Uncovering New Chicago Archives Project, the house belonging to Comiskey was further south on Michigan Avenue. The community paid for the lease and purchase of the building, for utilities, and for art supplies. The opening was accompanied by an inaugural exhibition of paintings by local black artists including Charles Davis,
Charles White, Bernard Goss, William Carter,
Eldzier Cortor, Charles Sebree,
Archibald Motley Jr., amongst others. Lessons were free and included oil painting, drawing, composition, water color, sculpture, lithography, poster design, fashion illustration, interior decoration, silk screen, weaving, and hooked rug-making. on
CBS Radio.
Landmark status The center earned
Chicago Landmark status on June 16, 1994. The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2018. ==Notes==