Closing reception: Saturday, August 1 at 5 pm

Almost 22 years ago Merl Blackwood passed away. His impact on the community and the students who passed through Freeport High School was immeasurable. With the support of the then principal L.A. Fulweider he created a studio classroom equipped with everything the students would need to have a full and rich education in the various art forms. He hung master reproductions in the halls of the school and encouraged a number of promising students to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where he and his wife Gladys Rourke had graduated from. Included in these students was Phiip Dedrick who went on to become a very successful artist, and art professor.

Merl and Gladys also are to be thanked for assembling a number of paintings by friends who worked on the Works Progress Administration program during the depression.

A World War I veteran, Merl taught himself to paint, draw and write with his left hand due to being wounded in the war. After retirement he would paint every day in his basement studio, his subject always being Freeport and the surrounding landscapes.

Gladys Rourke-Blackwood was known as a book illustrator and greeting card designer. She is has been recognized as the originator of paper dolls in in booklet form. In 1930 she had a design studio on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. Among her customers was Marshall Fields Company.

She wrote and illustrated her own book, Whistle for Cindy, and illustrated a number of other children’s books for other authors. She met Merl while a student at the Art Institute of Chicago and they married in 1929. They collaborated in the making of four dioramas for the Stephenson County Historical Society.

This exhibition is curated by education and programs director, Barry Treu and is partially supported by the Illinois Arts Council Agency.