Chicago Classical, 15’ x 6’, Acrylic on Canvas, 2000
Chicago Romantic, 16’ x 5’, Acrylic on Canvas, 2000

The landscape paintings, Chicago Classical and Chicago Romantic, were inspired by Jill Jeannides’s exploration of Chicago’s Grant Park as a student of the School of the Art Institute. She studied the park through painting many views, including the Grant Park Rose Garden and several views of Michigan Avenue. These studies culminated in the creation of Chicago Classical and Chicago Romantic in 2000, when the South Shore Line visually extended to Randolph Street and the foundation of Millenium Park was under construction.

At that time, and to this day, the train is still a major dynamic feature of Grant Park. Jeannides chose to use the trains as a unifying element in both paintings. The train represents the machinery that is responsible for the growth of Chicago as a major shipping and transportation hub. With that in mind Jeannides viewed the train from two opposite vantage points. The view of Chicago Classical looks northeast from the Spirit of Music Garden south of Congress Parkway. Chicago Romantic looks southwest from the view that is now the site of Maggie Daley Park.

The paintings were commissioned by the School of the Art Institute’s, “Creativity in the Workplace” program. The two paintings were created from direct observation and drawn out on paper. From there the paintings were completed in three weeks on custom made collapsible canvases in the Columbus Drive Studios at SAIC.

The murals capture the formal and informal aspects of Grant Park. They celebrate how the City of Chicago’s lakefront parks and gardens fuse with the engineered beauty of Chicago’s train lines and skyline. Jeannides’s paintings champion the city’s continued commitment to grand parks and urban ingenuity by way of the city’s landscape architecture.