Nancy Albrecht

Lake Street & Wacker Drive
2008
Oil on Panel

Artist statement:
This painting depicts a beautiful Chicago building as seen from under the Lake Street elevated tracks on the bridge over the Chicago river. The motif epitomizes the delightful tension between the grit of this "city that works" and the distinct architecture by which we are surrounded. The Lake Street Elevated Railway began operations in 1893, was the first elevated train to cross over the river, and helped form the heart of the Loop.

About the artist:
Signature member of International Plein Air Painters; Charter member of Plein Air Painters of Chicago; and lifetime member of Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, Nancy Albrecht has been painting for 30 years, won several awards, and had a sell-out show at the University Club of Chicago in 2007. Her Chicago paintings, with their strong geometry, bold paint surfaces, lyric details, and optimistic strength, call to mind Carl Sandburg's mythical image of Chicago as "cunning as a savage, pitted against the wilderness, bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding." (Robert Kameczura, Chicago critic, Big Shoulders Magazine)

Artist’s website:
www.nancyalbrechtstudio.com