Historic Bank Featured in Art Exhibit

Saving Grace

October 31, 2007

by Jack Bess

Some may see Chicago buildings as merely the backdrop for an infinite number of human dramas, but to artist Grace Lai, buildings themselves are a cast of characters.

Lai, 80, a Near North resident, loves buildings so much that they take center stage in her works done in pen and ink with a watercolor wash. An exhibit of 25 of her works is on display at Bridgeview Bank Uptown. The one-woman show is part of the bank's Artists Among Us program that showcases the work of Chicago artists.

"Grace has a great energy," said Tim Ryan, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Bridgeview Bank Group. "She goes and parks herself outside of these buildings, pulls out her sketchbook and away she goes. She really makes people see the beauty of the outside of buildings that they must just pass by or drive by."

Lai's images of buildings are intensely detailed and aim to leave nothing out. Her painting of the Bridgeview Bank building, one of Uptown's signature buildings that dates to the 1920s, accounts for every brick and every design element on its facade. In her downtown cityscapes, she gives each skyscraper an allotment of windows, hundreds if not thousands of them, as close as possible to the real thing...

Read complete article at: Pioneer Press