• 1941-1946 War Years
Andre Grill was attending the Art Institute of Chicago when World War II broke out. He was drafted into the military and served in the Army Air Corps in the Pacific. By 1946 he was married, had a child and was returned from war. Now, with the G.I. Bill benefits and ready to resume his art studies, he was off to Paris.
The artist found time to creat some visual souvenirs while he was in the Philippines and Okinawa.
• 1947 – 1952 The Paris Years
In 1947 he enrolled at the legendary Academie Julian in Paris. By 1948 he was living and painting in Montmartre in an atelier at the Villa des Arts with his wife, Margaret and young daughter. During his Paris years, Grill produced many fine works including portraits, nudes, landscapes stilllifes, and particularly charming landscape watercolor sketches of rural France and Spain and delightful views of Paris. In January of 1952 he had a one man show at the Gallerie de Seine and Left Paris in 1952, returning Wisconsin where he stayed.
• Scenes of the Artist’s Travels in Europe
• 1953 – 1958
After many months of hard work renovating an 1870s carriage house into an art studio with a north light facing skylight, Andre was ready to to create art just as his resources were depleted.
