Past Exhibits

The Hetherington Design Dynasty exhibit features the life and work of gifted architect, John Todd Hetherington, along with those of his son, Murray and grandson, Jack – three generations of talented architects – for the indelible mark they’ve made on the built environment of our historic Ridge district. The Graver-Driscoll House was a stop on…

Local Historians have been treasuring and using Louise Barwick’s beautiful paintings to learn, teach and inspire interest in history since Louise herself pivoted from creating beautiful art to also using it to illustrate what life was once like in this lovely place. Louise’s images spotlight places special to her and to this community in her…

Harry Hale Waterman (1869-1948) honed his skills as a young draftsman in the offices of Joseph Lyman Silsbee, working alongside several ambitious draftsmen that would later revolutionize architecture, including Frank Lloyd Wright, George Grant Elmslie, and George W. Maher.  Waterman soon built his own house in Morgan Park and started an independent architecture practice, designing…

Step into the world of Jack Simmerling (1935-2013), a beloved Chicago artist, historian, and preservationist whose life’s work was dedicated to capturing the soul of the city’s architecture. As a teenager, Simmerling documented and painted the vanishing grandeur and ruin of the Victorian-era residences on Prairie Avenue, salvaging what he could from them as they…