Morris Topchevsky

American, 1899 - 1947


Morris Topchevsky immigrated to Chicago with his family in 1910, leaving behind persecution in his native Poland. Once in Chicago, Topchevsky found a friend and colleague in Jane Addams. In the early 1920s, Topchevsky studied art at Addams’ Hull House and also enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with noted Impressionist Albert Krehbiel. Topchevsky traveled to Mexico City in the mid-1920s, when he was moved by the monumental public murals of Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. Topchevsky met and worked with Rivera during his stay in Mexico City.

Morris Topchevsky exhibited at such institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago (where his work was shown fourteen times between 1923 and 1946); the National Academy of Design, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Hyde Park; and the White Museum, San Antonio, among others. He completed murals for the Abraham Lincoln Center on Chicago’s South Side and for the Holmes School in Oak Park, IL.

  • Chicago , 1933
    Watercolor on paper
    14 x 10 inches

    Signed and dated Topchevsky 1933, lower right; titled lower left

    #18859
  • Chicago Scene (Looking West, Wacker Drive), ca. 1928
    Watercolor and graphite on paper
    8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
    #1886
  • Chicago Scene, ca. 1928
    Watercolor on paper
    8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
    #1884
  • Chicago Scene at Night, ca. 1928
    Watercolor on paper
    9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches

    Signed M. Topchevsky, upper right.

    #6799
  • Chicago at Night, 1928
    Watercolor on paper
    9 x 10 inches

    Signed and dated M. Topchevsky '28, upper right.

    #6798
  • Chicago River at Night (Savoy), ca. 1928
    Watercolor and graphite on paper
    8 3/4 x 6 inches

    Signed M. Topchevsky, lower right.

    #6800
  • Chicago Scene, ca. 1930s
    Watercolor on paper
    12 1/2 x 18 inches
    #1826
  • Chicago Scene (Skyscraper View), ca. 1928
    Graphite on paper
    8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
    #1874
  • Mural Study (Construction), ca. 1930s
    Watercolor and graphite on paper
    7 x 19 1/2 inches

    Signed M. Topchevsky on reverse.

    #6801
  • Lynching Scene
    Watercolor on paper
    19 x 3 3/4 inches
    #8259

Morris Topchevsky immigrated to Chicago with his family in 1910, leaving behind persecution in his native Poland. Once in Chicago, Topchevsky found a friend and colleague in Jane Addams. In the early 1920s, Topchevsky studied art at Addams’ Hull House and also enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with noted Impressionist Albert Krehbiel. Topchevsky traveled to Mexico City in the mid-1920s, when he was moved by the monumental public murals of Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. Topchevsky met and worked with Rivera during his stay in Mexico City.

Morris Topchevsky exhibited at such institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago (where his work was shown fourteen times between 1923 and 1946); the National Academy of Design, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Hyde Park; and the White Museum, San Antonio, among others. He completed murals for the Abraham Lincoln Center on Chicago’s South Side and for the Holmes School in Oak Park, IL.

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