Carl Street Studios

The Carl Street Studios is an enclave in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood.

The Carl Street Studios complex began its life as a single family three story mansion built during the 1880s, and was, during part of these early years, reputedly owned by a mayor of the city of Chicago. During the 1880s through the 1910s, the surrounding neighborhood was a fashionable district for Chicago’s upper middle class. The original structure, located on what was then Carl Street, was quite typical of the Victorian mansions that were built during the period, and its style is fairly reflected by many of the brownstone and greystone mansions that still dot the west side of LaSalle Street between Division Street and North Avenue.

During the 1910s and 1920s the socio-economic status of the surrounding area changed, with German, Bohemian and eastern European immigrants constituting the primary ethnic makeup of the new resident pool. Many of the Victorian mansions in the area, including those located on Carl Street, were converted into multi-family dwellings and some fell into disrepair. The value of real estate in the neighborhood suffered a corresponding decline.

Shortly after World War I, a clique of enterprising and innovative artists enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Two such art students, Sol Kogen and Edgar Miller, met at the school and became friends and leaders of an avant-garde group of art students. Sol Kogen’s parents were reasonably prosperous merchants from Chicago. A bon vivant throughout his lifetime, Sol entered the family business shortly after his experience at the Art Institute, and did well enough to “retire” from the business in the mid-1920s, travel to Europe for a number of years and pursue more independent and artistic endeavors.

In about 1927, Sol Kogen, having spent some years in Paris, and in particular the artistic Montmartre neighborhood of that city, conceived of a plan to develop an artist studio in Chicago where independent-leaning Midwestern artists could work. Sol Kogen sought an environment in which modern art could be encouraged and flourish in Chicago.

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