Chicago Rising from the Lake, 1954
Milton Horn
Northwest side of the
Columbus Drive Bridge
Originally located on a City Parking Facility known as
the “Bird Cage” at 11 West Wacker, this 12 x 14 foot, 3 ½ ton bronze relief has
endured a tumultuous history. When the garage was demolished in 1983, Horn was
in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer and, without his knowledge, the piece was
removed by city workers and hauled to the bridge-repair shop’s iron-working
facility at 31st Street and Sacramento Avenue. Housed for some years
in a warehouse, the piece later ended up in an outdoor storage area, was
rediscovered in 1988 by the artist and friend Paula Ellis, but subsequently was
moved, without notifying Horn, when the repair shopped relocated. By 1991, when
Horn and Ellis tried to resume their efforts to locate and find a new home for
the work, no one knew its precise location. The work was still considered lost
when Milton Horn died in April 1995.
In September 1997, a firefighter stumbled upon the piece
under several wooden pallets and covered with twigs, dirt and cigarette butts
in a storage yard a few hundred yards from its previous location. The original
curving bars that extended from the piece were never recovered. The piece
required approximately $60,000 worth of repairs, including the replacement of
the semicircular projecting harp, and it was installed at its current location
in May 1998. Andrzej Dajnowski, a Polish-born conservator trained at Harvard
and employed by the Smithsonian Institution, completed much of the restoration.
Milton Horn (1906-1995) was born in Kiev, Ukraine and
came to the United States in 1915. After marrying Estelle Oxenhorn and moving
to Chicago in 1949, Horn created several works of art for the Chicago area,
including a controversial relief panel for a synagogue in the suburb of River
Forest that may have been the first use of figural sculpture on a Jewish temple
since the time of Christ.
The central figure in Chicago
Rising from the Lake was modeled after his wife, whom he considered his
muse, collaborator and publicist, and it represents “Chicago” as a female form
of abundance and fertility. The ripples along the bottom indicate Lake Michigan
and other elements refer to aspects of Chicago’s history and importance: the
sheaf of wheat in her left hand represents the grain trade; the bull on her
right recalls the Union Stockyards and the city’s role as meat processor; the
eagle indicates Chicago’s role as an air transportation center; while the plant
forms in the background respond to the city motto: Urbs in Horto (City in a Garden). The three curving bars that
extend from the piece place “Chicago” in the center of an orb and represent the
railroads, industry and commerce.
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