On Sunday, October 2nd, South Shore Arts celebrated the 79th Annual Salon Show, a juried exhibition, that awarded over $13,000 in cash prizes. The exhibit opened September 9th and will run through November 6th in the Main Gallery at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts.

The Salon Show is a tradition that has defined South Shore Arts since its inception in the late 1930s, when ten Hammond and Calumet City artists sponsored the first annual Art Exhibition of the Hammond District Art Association in the millinery department of the Minas Department Store in downtown Hammond.

The exhibit came about when Hammond sign painter O.O. Haag and Edward C. Minas, Jr., met to discuss a sign to be painted on the side of the store. Their discussion led Mr. Minas to ask if an exhibit might be held there, just as Marshall Field and Company had housed the Hoosier Salon Exhibition in its State Street picture galleries, until discontinuing it a few years before.

The invitation was enthusiastically accepted. Among the 28 artists who exhibited were Lenore Condé Lawson, Frank Myslive, architect/watercolorist William J. Bachman, Mr. Haag, art teacher Charles Untules and sculptor H. Laverne Thornton.

In addition to Edward C. and Clarence Minas who furnished rent-free space, prizes and other support, substantial credit goes to Mr. Haag, who for years assembled and catalogued the exhibits, furnishing free space for the judges and the labor necessary for the receipt and return of artwork.

As recalled by Theresa Buzinski, an art patron from East Chicago, the Salon Show was the exhibit where one could go to view and buy original art created by some of the area’s finest artists. Mrs. Buzinski paid $30 for the piece accompanying this article, which she remembers purchasing when the exhibit was still held in the Minas hat department. The artist was B. Morris and the piece looks as pristine now as it did the year she purchased it.

Since 1989, the Salon Show has been presented in the 5,000-square-foot gallery in the Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Munster. The first Helen V. Surovek Memorial Award was presented at the opening of the 46th Annual Salon Show in October of that year as one of the exhibit’s top prizes.

Thanks to the generosity of Judy and Tom Surovek and many other long-time contributors, the Salon Show has become one of the Midwest’s most prestigious visual arts competitions.

This year’s juror, Chris Cosnowski , is an artist and educator living and working in Chicago. Chris received his B.F.A from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1992 and his M.F.A from Northwestern University in 2000. He has been teaching at the American Academy of Art since 2003. He has had work exhibited extensively throughout the United States as well as London. In 2013, he had a 10-year retrospective with the South Shore Arts Gallery in Munster, IN curated by John Cain. Chris’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications including, but not limited to, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, The New Art Examiner and the New York Observer. Other publications include Manifest Gallery’s International Painting Annual 4 and he has been twice featured on the cover of New American Paintings in 2001 and 2014. Chris was awarded a commission to design artwork for the Blue Line Montrose station by the Chicago Transit Authority which was installed in June of 2021.

We thank the Salon Show Exhibit sponsors, BMO Harris Bank, Indiana University Northwest, and the JoAnn & Chuck Long Endowment Fund. Community sponsors Community & Board Sponsors Christian Bartholomew, Leane Cerven, Kay Depel, Drs. Becca & Gus Galante.

Salon Show Award Winners:

Renee & Sam Denmark Memorial Award, $2,500: Andrew Conklin, Barista, Oil on Linen

Helen V. Surovek Memorial Award, $2,000: Bonnie Zimmer, My Gaia, Mixed Media Sculpture

Cegur/ Pohl Award, $1,500: Tina Figarelli, All the Women in Me are Tired, Oil on Panel

Leslie Denmark Memorial Award, $1,000: Elsa Muñoz, La Luz Vuele a Mî, Oil on Panel

Anne E. & Stephen L. Brtko Memorial Award, $500: Alicia Dawn Criswell, If Only, Oil on Canvas

John Cain Legacy Award, $500: Brandon Johnson, The Scribe, Oil on Panel

Hazel Taberner English Memorial Award, $500: Billy Pozzo, Marco, Charcoal on Paper

Chris Pohl & Bruce Cegur with Tina Figarelli

Drs. Becca & Gus Galante Salon Show Award, $500: Alan Larkin, The Bird, Thieves Oil on Canvas

Wanda L. & Richard W. Gardner Memorial Award, $500: William Krug, Tilt-A-Whirl, Oil on Panel

Orval O. and Margaret C. Haag Memorial Award, $500: Rick Therrio, Armida Comes for El Santo, Ink

Linda & Myron Nidetz Memorial Award, $500: James Connolly, Fun Forms with Landscape, Colored Pencil

Ag Perryman Award for Excellence, $500: John Hrehov, Summer Gate, Oil on Panel

The Raab Award, $500: Kimberly Rodey, Dialphone, Acrylic and Graphite on Clayboard

Alexandra Gardner Riddle Memorial Award, $500: James Siergey, The Martyred, Mute Ink

Ernestine "Dolly" M. Wisnewski Memorial Award, $500: Sabrina Sabella, Monochrome, Ink Marti

Woodward Memorial Award, $500: James Deeb, Creeping Bruise, Oil on Linen

Merit Awards, $100:

Laurel Izard, The Hanged Man, Embroidered Cotton

Jeff Bratanch, De-Ja-Vu, Oil on MDF

Matthew Kaplan, Whiting & Refinery - January 2022, Archival Inkjet Print

David A. DeCesaris, Good Shepherd, Acrylic on Birch