Jules Guerin

Jules Guérin (November 18, 1866 – June 14, 1946), American muralist, architectural delineator, and illustrator.

Jules Vallée Guérin was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 18, 1866 and moved to Chicago to study art in 1880. In 1889 he is known to have shared a studio with Winsor McCay, the noted cartoonist. They influenced each other in their use of daring points of view. In 1893 Guerin made a painting of one of the buildings at the Chicago World's Fair. His only confirmed art instruction occurred in Chicago, though biographies claim that he studied in Paris. Though of French Huguenot descent, he is not likely to have spoken French fluently as a child. Nothing in his style or method indicates a Beaux Arts education.

In 1900 he established a studio in New York, where he made his name as an architectural delineator and illustrator. His first major break occurred when he was hired by Charles Follen McKim to create some illustrations for the Senate Parks Commission (McMillan Plan) for Washington. These were exhibited and published in 1902. Architects began hiring Guérin to make similar, dramatic renderings of their buildings. He worked mainly in watercolor, gouache, and tempera, usually on colored board. His fame as a colorist soon spread, and he took on more work as a magazine illustrator and sold lithographs. Guérin was a frequent contributor to Scribner's Magazine and Century Magazine during the first decade of the Twentieth Century.

As a result of his success in the Washington plan Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett hired Guérin to make perspective illustrations for their monumental work, The Plan of Chicago in 1907. The spectacular color views of the proposed city, many from a bird's eye perspective, are his most famous works. The majority of these original renderings—by Guérin and other artists—are in the collection of the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, while others are currently owned by the Chicago Historical Society.

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