The Village of Hinsdale’s connection to the art world can be traced back to before its incorporation in the mid-19th century.
Born in 1862, Marie Louise Fuller, later known by her stage name Loïe Fuller, was a trailblazer of the modern dance movement, debuting her talents at the Chicago Academy of Music at the age of four.
Loïe was the granddaughter of Jacob Fuller, who in the late 1830s moved his family out of New York to a plot of land west of the swampy grounds surrounding the then Fort Dearborn, the plot became the small settlement Fullersburg and later incorporated into northern Hinsdale and the south side of Oak Brook.
On the weekend of Feb. 1-3, the Hinsdale Historical Society paid tribute to Loïe Fuller’s contribution to the art world, hosting an antique poster exhibit at Immanuel Hall, dedicated to the late Beverly Erickson, whose private collection of more than 20 original Loie posters adorned the walls of the event.
Several of the posters were up for sale alongside a collection of artworks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, provided by Triad Art Group, an art dealer business founded and owned by Hinsdalean Greg Bloch, and curated by his daughter Hope Lloyd Brown.
“We’re trying to bring history to life in Hinsdale,” Brown said in an interview with the Doings.
While born in what is now Hinsdale, Loïe Fuller’s heart lay in Paris, where most of the art on display and for sale originated, Brown said.
The exhibit encapsulated nearly half a century of art from the La Belle Époque movement in France that ran from the 1870s until the days leading up to the First World War.
“There are things I’ll never sell,” Bloch said. “I’m a collector and dealer … but when it comes to art you’re just a caretaker.”
Hinsdale Historical Society hosts art gallery revealing community’s ties to the last two centuries of art
