page_title: Johannes Gelert
section_title: Lost works
hierarchical_section_title: Johannes Gelert / Lost works
caption_attribution_description: Auditorium Building, Chicago. Interior: theatre detail.
context_page_description: Johannes Gelert was a Danish-born sculptor, who came to the United States in 1887 and during a span of more than thirty years produced numerous works of civic art in the Midwest and on the East Coast.
context_section_description: After major fire damage in 1890, McVicker's Theatre in Chicago was redesigned by the architectural firm of Adler and Sullivan. Johannes Gelert contributed two panels in bas-relief: "one depicting the march of LaSalle, which was the entrance of Christianity into Illinois, the other symbolizing in a picture of the Fort Dearborn massacre the final struggle of savagery to hold its own against the new civilization of the State." Dating from 1872, the building was demolished in 1922 to make way for the third version of McVicker's Theatre, a movie palace that lasted until 1984 and was taken down the following year.
  A bronze bust of Beethoven, created by Gelert in 1897, stood in Lincoln Park for over seventy years.  Stolen in 1971, a fragment of the base remains.
  In 1899 Gelert was one of twenty-eight sculptors working on the Dewey Arch, which honored Admiral George Dewey and his victory in the Battle of Manila Bay the previous year. The monument, erected for a parade on September 30, 1899, was made of staff, a material often used for temporary structures at international fairs and expositions. Soon after the celebration the arch began to deteriorate.  When funds could not be raised to remake it with durable materials, the arch was destroyed.
caption: Portrait medallions at the Auditorium Theatre 1963
exif: {}