Carl C. Preussl

Carl Conrad Preussl was born in Nurnberg, Germany in 1894. In 1914, he emigrated to America with his parents and the family settled in Chicago. After serving with the Allied forces in WWI, Preussl worked as an artist at the S & W Art Service in the Reliable Building in Chicago. He began exhibiting at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1924. Preussl exhibited 23 times at the Art Institute between 1924 and 1934, winning the Eisendrath Prize for a Chicago scene in 1926. He won a prize at the Chicago Galleries Association exhibition in 1928. That year, he also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy. The painting “Our City” was prominently featured in a notable Chicago Galleries Association show called “8 Chicago Painters”, which ran from March 1 to March 25, 1930. The show also featured such early, important Chicago painters as Rudolph Ingerle, E. Martin Hennings, Frederic Tellander and J. Jeffrey Grant. “Our City” was illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

Examples of Preussl’s work can be found in the collections of the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, Wyoming and the Illinois State Museum in Chicago. The painting in the Illinois State Museum’s collection is a similar, though smaller, painting entitled “The City”. That painting currently resides in the office of Governor of the State of Illinois. Preussl is best known for his magnificent and grand views of Chicago painted during the ‘Roaring Twenties’. As demonstrated in the large, dynamic canvas “Our City”, Preussl’s work exemplifies the spirit of the ‘City of Big Shoulders’. Preussl died in Chicago in 1951.