Chicago artist Lorado Taft created many large-scale works, including the Black Hawk statue, and for five decades, from 1886 until his death in 1936, he was a vibrant figure in the Illinois art world as a sculptor, lecturer, and author. Born on April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois, the son of a geology professor, he began studying art at an early age, earned art degrees at the University of Illinois in Champaign, studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and returned to Illinois in 1883. From 1886 to 1907, he taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and also lectured at the University of Chicago. He founded or joined many art organizations, studios, and art colonies, including the Eagle's Nest Art Colony near what is now Lowden State Park in 1898 and Midway Studios near Washington Park in Chicago in 1907, where young artists gathered to assist and learn from him in an atelier with large work studios and dormitories for male and female students. One of his prominent assistants from Midway Studios, Prasuhn, had worked as a civil engineer before turning to sculpture, and his engineering experience and concrete skills made the giant Black Hawk sculpture possible; Taft created the initial model, but Prasuhn was the primary artist and engineer behind its construction, and Taft gave his students generous credit for the sculpture.

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Oregon, Illinois · USA