Louis Frederick Grell (November 30, 1887 – November 21, 1960) was an American figure composition and portrait artist based in the Tree Studio resident artist colony in Chicago, Illinois. He received his formal training in Europe from 1900 through 1915 and later became art professor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922, and at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1922 to 1934. Grell exhibited his works throughout Europe from 1905 to 1915, in San Francisco in 1907, and in Chicago at the Art Institute 25 times from 1917 to 1941. He exhibited in New York in 1915 and 1916 and in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Primarily an allegorical and figurative composition muralist and portrait painter, his creative strokes adorn the ceilings and walls of numerous US National Historic Landmark buildings.
Early life
He was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to German emigrant meat market owners, and remained until the age of 12, when in May 1900, his parents decided to send him to Hamburg, Germany, to study art. Grell's first two years were spent refining his understanding of the German language. He then began a three-year study of the fundamentals of painting in Altona, Germany. Soon after, he was accepted to the prestigious School of Applied Arts in Hamburg, where young student Grell and Professor Switz earned commissions together to paint murals inside the famous Hamburg Boathouse (the great meeting place for all of Northern Germany), Hamburg Music Hall and elaborate paintings for the home of Germany's wealthiest man, "Budge, the Turpentine King". Grell's work at the Academy would earn him praise in 1906 at the Third German Arts & Crafts Exhibition in Dresden.
Training
For Grell, earning top student honors of 3,000 students from 1905 to 1907 at the School of Applied Arts in Hamburg meant the Hamburg School would sponsor him at the Royal Academie of Fine Arts in Munich, under Franz von Stuck, Carl von Marr and Angelo Jank, from 1908 through 1912 (1907, June 2. Omaha World Herald). Grell also attended the University of Munich. While in Munich, Grell was a member of the famed American Artists Club with fellow members E. Martin Hennings, Walter Ufer, Emil Frei, Victor Higgins – a total of sixteen members are photographed attending Friday evening meetings at Club Glasl in Munich. Upon completion of his formal studies in Germany, Grell traveled Europe studying at major art centers, painting and exhibiting his works throughout Europe.
In May 1907, after Grell had completed his art training in Hamburg, he returned to America to visit family in Council Bluffs, Iowa. At the age of 19, on a late summer family vacation to Salt Lake City, Utah, Grell took over a failed mural commission depicting the 1847 entry of the Mormons into Emigration Canon. The mural was commissioned for the Manufacturers Hall exhibit in downtown Salt Lake City under preparations for the Utah State Fair of 1907. Grell won top prize at the fair and earned numerous other commissions while in Salt Lake City from August to November. Grell hired two assistants and took three months to finish the paintings. One large work eventually ended up on exhibit in San Francisco in the fall of 1907.
Upon completion of his extended stay in the US, Grell returned to Germany, this time enrolling in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in March 1908 where he remained until 1910. When America's involvement in World War I became certain, Grell was forced to escape Europe in 1914 through Norway and landed his first American artistic position as a stage set designer for large Broadway productions in New York City in 1915. By early fall of 1916, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts offered Grell a position as art instructor. Grell family archives, specifically a postcard sent to family by Grell (personal communication #1, October 28, 1916), show Grell as rooming with fellow Munich artist and friend E. Martin Hennings in studio #14 at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. Both artists would eventually relocate to their own studios in the famous Tree Studio art colony in Chicago's near north side. Grell would live at Tree Studios in Chicago from 1917 until his death in 1960.
Chicago
Grell was the main art instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1922 where one of his students was animator and cartoonist, Walt Disney. In 1917, Elias Disney relocated his family back to Chicago where Walt Disney attended McKinley High School during the day and took art classes at night at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts under Grell in 1917 and 1918.