North Shore Community Bank Hosts Antique Impressionist Painting

WINNETKA, IL — The Winnetka Historical Society recently acquired their second painting from local artist Pauline Dohn Rudolph, who lived in Winnetka from 1907 to 1933. The 1897 painting called “The Seeker: I Sent My Soul Through the Invisible”, was donated to the WHS the M. Christine Schwartz Collection, and is now on display at the North Shore Community Bank in Winnetka.

“It is such a special painting and unique for our collection,” WHS curator Meagan McChesney told the Record North Shore. “When we received the donation, we really wanted to share it with the public, and the bank gets a lot more visitors. It’s also such a secure location, and they really worked with us on handling it properly and making sure it hung in a spot where people wouldn’t be touching it.”

Eventually, the painting will make its way back to WHS’ home in a charming Victorian house on Linden Street, where it will join Rudolph’s “Portrait of a Young Woman in a Chinese Robe.”

Rudolph was born in Chicago in 1865. She studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, then the Académie Julian in Paris. Upon returning to Chicago, Rudolph founded and exhibited at the Pallette Club before teaching at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. She exhibited at least four works at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She participated in traveling exhibits that brought fine arts to women’s groups all over the country.

She married Franklin Rudolph in 1901, and they moved to 745 Sheridan Road in Winnetka in 1907, where they had three children. Once she became a mother, she stopped painting, and began teaching young artists and volunteering for the Winnetka Public Library, according to the Record. She moved to California in 1933 and died the following year.

The recently acquired painting depicts a woman deep in thought outdoors. According to the Schwartz collection, the 48x36-inch piece is “the most ambitious easel painting of Pauline Dohn’s relatively brief career.”