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Muskegon County Museum
430 W. Clay Ave.
Muskegon, MI 49440
(231) 722-0278
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Victor Casenelli, a local artist, was commissioned
by National Lumberman's Bank in 1929 to paint a
sequence of pictures to commemorate their 70th
anniversary. The 17 canvases were painted to
depict Muskegon from the "beginning of its
history" through its "Lumber Queen"
era, and ending with the economic rebirth brought
about by industrial development.
More
impressive than words is the story of Muskegon as it
is unfolded on canvas by the creative ability of
North Muskegon artist, Victor Casenelli.
The
paintings were exhibited in the lobby of the
National Lumberman's Bank on Western Avenue (near
where the old mall used to sit) until 1965 when the
bank moved to their modern, new building at First
and Webster. The paintings remained in the old
Western Avenue building for nearly seven
years. In 1972, when the building was to be
razed as part of the downtown urban renewal, sixteen
of the murals were moved to the auditorium at
Muskegon High School, and the remaining one was
placed on exhibit in the Hackley Art Gallery.
There they remained until September of 1983 when FMB
Lumberman's Bank donated the paintings to the
Muskegon County Museum. In 2000, fifteen of
the paintings were hung in the Coming to the
Lakes Gallery, while the remaining two were put
into storage. The paintings remain in this
gallery today, hung around the top of the exhibit
which discusses the migration of people to Western
Michigan over the last 10,000 years.
Dawn is the
prologue of Casenelli's story, so sunset served as
the epilogue. The story of the paintings was
explained as follows:
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1.
"I started with the beginning of
time. My first picture is Pigeon Hill at
Dawn, before any man came to it. I saw
slopes and the lake in the foreground." |
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2.
"...deer roam at will." |
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3.
"Now we go along the shores of Muskegon
Lake with great pines and oaks, lonely,
untouched." |
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4.
"The Indian hunter stalking the
deer." |
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5.
"The story goes on...a white hunter with
his coonskin cap and his long rifle." |
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6.
"...lumberjacks...felling the
trees." |
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7.
"...the great bobsleds hauling the logs
to the rollways on the river." |
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8.
"There are log jams and men with peavies
breaking them up." |
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9.
"Then there is the mill itself, still
standing under the North Muskegon bluff near
my home when I first came here." |
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10.
"...panoramic view of Muskegon when it
was a town of frame buildings with rude docks
and the rakish masts of schooners. IN
the foreground is the corduroy road on which
wagons and carriages jolted to and from North
Muskegon." |
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11.
"...this is a lumber hooker..." |
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12.
"...rafts of logs towed from the sorting
grounds to the mill by chunky little
tugs." |
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13.
"...a lumber hooker, as they operated by
sail power before the larger ships came
along." |
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14.
"This shows a Chicago-to-Muskegon
passenger ship emerging from the harbor
channel into Muskegon Lake at sunset." |
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15.
"...this is a more modernistic conception
of Muskegon...factories and other buildings
along the shore of the lake. Oil tankers
at the pipeline docks, a steamship at its
wharf, a plane overhead. In the
foreground, automobiles whiz along a concrete
causeway. |
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VICTOR
CASENELLI
(1870 - 1963)
Vittorio Casenelli was born in New York City on July 8, 1870
to Genoese parents. While Victor was still a boy, the
family moved to Cincinnati. During his boyhood his
interest in art and his talent for painting became
evident. When he was old enough, he opened his first
studio in Cincinnati where he designed backdrops for Pike's
Opera Company and guest artist Paderewski. Casenelli
also designed and painted murals and draperies for interior
decoration. In fact, the Ohio home for President Taft
displays evidence of the Casenelli brush.
In order to pay the
bills, however, Casenelli ground out dozens of commercial
pastels. At times, he feared that his talent was being
wasted.
In 1904, he married
Harriet Davies, a talented painter/composer who came from
Canada. Searching for a quieter setting than
Cincinnati, they found what they wanted upon a peninsula
overlooking two lovely lakes on the shores of Lake
Michigan. they chose a small village consisting of
only thirty homes in North Muskegon. In 1905, Victor
and Harriet Casenelli designed and built a modest cottage
with a small studio connected to the house on the west side
on a wooded bluff above Bear Lake. Here Casenelli
lived and worked until his death on November 17, 1963, at
the age of 93.
For about sixty years,
Casenelli made his home across the lake from Muskegon.
Owing to the extreme modesty of the artist and his aversion
for publicity, there were many people who were barely aware
of his existence and knew still less of his work, although a
number of his canvasses are owned by Muskegon people.
Casenelli frequently
traveled, sketching scenery for future paintings.
Eventually, his paintings covered a range of subject matter,
including pastoral, Indian, Venetian, and Michigan
scenes. Gifted in many mediums, he produced
outstanding works in pen and ink, water colors, and oil.
Casenelli developed a
unique style, realistic, but never photographic; moving, yet
subdued; impressionistic, yet vivid; life-like, but
timeless.
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