Larry Ballard (Lisle, IL)
This woodcarver / folk artist describes his creations as "fanciful figures." His statue of St. Benedict stands watch over the entrance to the Benedictine Library.
Dorothea Bilder (DeKalb, IL)
An artist of Greek descent, Dorothea Bilder says her art is based upon personal experiences, dreams, and conversations. Her sense of history and of society's times is incorporated in the colors, shapes, and textures of her images. A collection of her works is displayed on the first floor of Kindlon Hall near the north elevator.
Fr. Vitus Buresh, O.S. B. (Lisle, IL) 1923-1988
For nearly 40 years, Fr. Vitus served the Benedictine University community as a librarian in the Benedictine Library. He also loved the outdoors, spent many long hours at work caring for the Abbey's woods, and developed a considerable talent in woodcarving and woodturning. Many evidences of his craft, notably his life-size statue of St. Benedict, continue to adorn our St. Procopius Abbey.
- Read more about Fr. Vitus on the Benedictine Library History site.
Tony Fitzpatrick (Chicago, IL)
Not only is Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick famous for the precision of his etchings. Throughout his life he has worked as a tattoo artist, an actor, a semiprofessional boxer, a disc jockey, and a poet. His artwork is displayed in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami. He also designed the album cover art for the Neville Brothers "Yellow Moon", Lou Reed's "Big Cat" and Steve Earle's "El Corazon". As an actor, he has appeared in the films "Philadelphia," "Primal Fear," and "Married to the Mob".
Max Kahn (Elmhurst, IL)
Max Kahn was head of Chicago's WPA Art Print Department with Eleanor Cohn at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930's to early 1940. His WPA prints and paintings are located in 18 major art museums in the US including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Newark Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and many others. Max Kahn's family immigrated to Peoria, Illinois from Russia in 1907. He earned a degree from Bradley University. In the late 1920s, Kahn studied sculpture and print making in Paris, New York, and Chicago. He worked for the Illinois WPA in the easel program. He taught from 1944 at the Art Institute and had 13 one-man shows in the United States and abroad between then and 1959. His prints and watercolors are in the collections of many museums.
Matt Lamb (Chicago, IL)
Before he became a painter and a sculptor, Matt Lamb had a long, successful business career overseeing the Blake-Lamb chain of funeral homes. It was only after he survived a life threatening illness at age fifty that he decided to devote his life to creating art. Completely self-taught, his artwork is a reflection of his own strong philosophies and religious beliefs.
Mr. Lamb has devised a completely new painting technique where he creates extraordinary depth of color and dynamic sense of movement with a blowtorch, wire brush and other personally developed techniques. One of his expressionistic abstract oil paintings is displayed near the northwest entrance of Kindlon Hall.
- Visit the official Matt Lamb web site
- Read Debra Pickett's October 2, 2005 Sunday Chicago Sun-Times article "Sunday Lunch with Matt Lamb"
Thomas Augustin O'Shaughnessy (Chicago, IL)
When Benedictine Hall was demolished in the summer of 2004, the thirteen Thomas O' Shaughnessy stained-glass windows that graced St. Benedict Chapel and the Abbot's Chapel were carefully removed and restored. [View photos of the removal of the windows from the Chapel.] They are now displayed around our campus in the Krasa Center, and in Kindlon and Scholl Halls.
Thomas O'Shaughnessy is perhaps better known in the Chicago area for his Book of Kells inspired windows of the Old St. Patrick's Church which were inspired by the Book of Kells which he had the unique opportunity to copy during his art studies in Europe. One art critique praised his work in these words: "not one artist from our country or abroad exhibits the gift of genius as does Thomas O'Shaughnessy."
Ed Paschke (Chicago, IL) 1939-2004
Chicago artist Ed Paschke was one of our country's top contemporary painters with an international reputation. His colorful and often confrontational paintings have been exhibited in and collected by museums throughout the United States and Europe since the 1960s. Borrowing images from the print and electronic media, Ed Paschke is known for his vibrant canvases that seem to carry an electrical charge of their own. Three of Ed Paschke's lithographs are displayed in the west hall just outside the entrance to the library.
Jeanette Pasin Sloan (formerly of River Forest, IL)
Former Illinois artist Jeanette Pasin Sloan now makes her home in Sante Fe, New Mexico. She has perfected a photo-realistic style to depict reflective objects set against patterned backgrounds. A collection of Jeanette Pasin Sloan's works is displayed in the Jim Ryan lounge area on the first floor of Kindlon Hall.