The Ridge Historical Society
The 2022 Beverly Art Walk
By Carol Flynn
The Ridge Historical Society will be doing what we do best, something no one else will be doing, for the 2022 Beverly Art Walk – connecting the past with the present.
“The Ridge” has had an art community going back to its earliest days. Once the railroads started making the area accessible, artists came to seek inspiration from the natural beauty of the Ridge.
On August 23, 1884, the Inter Ocean newspaper, one of the Chicago newspapers of the day, published an article about Washington Heights, which included today’s Beverly, and Morgan Park. The article reported on the unique attractiveness and engaging panorama of the Ridge, the forest so dense that to get lost in it was an easy thing, the wild cherries, the twilight shadows, the deep ravines, the hooting owls ….
The Ridge woods were visited that day by “young Landeau,” an artist who was in mourning because he had recently lost his friend and mentor, landscape artist Henry Arthur Elkins. Landeau was quoted as saying, “These very woods gave Elkins his inspiration, I verily believe, and I happen to know he often visited them.”
Landeau took solace that he was experiencing the same “wild
scenes” that so inspired his friend.
Artists soon began moving to the Ridge. In the 1890s, John Vanderpoel and William French from the Art Institute of Chicago made their homes in North Beverly. Hundreds of artists have called the Ridge home during the last one hundred and thirty years.
One of these was Mildred Lyon, whose family moved to Beverly in 1914, the year she graduated from the Art Institute. Although Vanderpoel was gone by then from the Art Institute, Mildred’s instruction would have been strongly influenced by him and his famous book, The Human Figure, which guided countless students on how to draw features of the human body from foreheads to toes. Mildred certainly knew Matilda Vanderpoel, the younger sister of the artist, also an instructor at the Art Institute and resident of North Beverly.
Mildred married Murray Hetherington in 1924, joining the family known for designing some of the outstanding architecture that shaped Beverly/Morgan Park into the show place it remains to this day. Mildred became known in her own right for her portraits and illustrations of children’s books and craft projects.
Mildred Lyon Hetherington will be the focus of the exhibit that RHS will premier for the Beverly Art Walk on Saturday, September 17. This week, we will offer some glimpses into Mildred and the upcoming exhibit.
The Beverly Art Walk, brought to us by the Beverly Area Arts Alliance, concentrates on the present-day artists in the community. The Alliance founders, Sal Campbell and Monica Wilczak, are commended for revitalizing the arts on the Ridge. RHS concentrates on the history of the community and this exhibit provides a link from the past to the present.