Franklin B. Van Court (Franklin V. Brown)

Franklin Van Court was born Franklin V. Brown, in Chicago in 1903. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. In New York, his teachers were esteemed artists Charles Hawthorn and Robert Henri and in Chicago, Frederick Grant and Anthony Angarola. These instructors shaped Van Court’s urban vision, for which he is best known. Later in life, Van Court experimented with Abstraction. He was a member of the prestigious Chicago Society of Artists and exhibited at the Art Institute and the Union League Club. Van Court won prizes at the Union League Club in 1929 and in 1931 at the Chicago Society of Artists’ exhibitions. In 1933, his paintings were exhibited at a Whitney Museum of American Art show in New York by Chicago artists that also featured the famous Grant Wood painting “American Gothic”. He lived his adult life in the same Hyde Park house that he grew up in and died there in 1997.