Charles Biesel

View of Wrigley Building Under Construction From State Street Bridge, ca. 1920

Watercolor on paper

15 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

#7674

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Charles Biesel was the father of artist Fred Biesel. He was born in New York in 1865 and worked as a lithographer and artist in New York, Philadelphia and Newport, RI before moving to the Chicago area in 1918. While in Newport, he co-founded the Newport Art Association in 1912. Biesel was stationed as a first lieutenant in the Ordinance Reserve Corps at the Rock Island arsenal and while later headquartered in Chicago, he conducted munitions inspections of Indiana steel mills and painted his surroundings of the Chicago river and its industry. He first exhibited at Donlon Galleries in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue.

He lived at the 57th Street Artists Colony and was a member of the Arts Club of Chicago and the Chicago Society of Artists. In 1922, he was one of the founders of the Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists. Biesel was among the first to exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center and also exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. He died in Chicago in 1945.