Robert Leroy Bailey - Post War

Post War

Bailey moved to Chicago after the war and was admitted into The Art Institute of Chicago. After living at the YMCA for two months, he rented a studio on the fourth floor above a Chinese restaurant. In 1951, he received his Bachelor of Arts in design, painting and sculpture. Bailey further supplemented his art with an academic education in abnormal psychology, obtained in 1951 from The University of Chicago. While obtaining this second degree, he worked at night as an overhead crane operator in the steel mills. Then in 1956-157, he attended the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting taking photographs of the atmosphere surrounding him (many of these pictures were used for their 1962 informational folder).

Bailey lived in Chicago for 20 years, moving from his 700 North State Street loft (where he did stage design for Minsky’s Burlesque house downstairs, inviting local talent to pose nude for his paintings between the dancer’s sets) to a storefront on Lincoln and North Halstead in the 1960s.

The 1950s and 1960s are known as his most prolific artistic period. It was during these decades that he became well known for his photography and sculpture. As Vice President of the Chicago Society of Artists, Bailey designed and built the gallery (Chicago Society of Artists on 2256 N. Orchard & Lincoln Street, Chicago, 60614). The gallery was intended to display paintings and sculpture. It was created to showcase one-man or group shows and the group’s annual exhibitions. In the late 1950s, it unfortunately caught fire and was permanently closed. Getting back on the horse in 1957, Bailey helped organize Exhibit “A”, a group of 24 local artists. He and his cohorts (Edna Arnow, Donald Schweikert, Angelo Testa, Victor Perlmutter, Bruno Bak and Morris Barazani) ran exhibits in Chicago.

In 1959, Bailey left with a grant from the Mexican government for six months to capture imagery of Mayan children, villages and schools. The images he captured resulted in a black-and-white photographic exhibition in Mexico City (this photography is now part of the Smithsonian Collection). In 1963, Bailey reached his highest honor after receiving the International Design Award for his sculpture.

After continuing his run of painting and sculpture, Bailey moved in 1970 to his Wood Dale Studio (built from the sale of his friend, Alice Mason’s, old farm) where he lived with Alice and her husband (443 North Grove Ave., Box 277 Wood Dale, Illinois). Bailey knew Alice from when she was the head of the Chicago Society of Artists.

A year later, Bailey moved to a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) studio on Huron River Drive in Michigan and later to a loft over a theater in Dexter (on Baker and Main) where he mainly worked with Photography. In July 1993, he experienced his first stroke which slowed him only briefly before continuing back to his art driven lifestyle.

Bailey’s last residence before moving to the VA Hospital was a small apartment he lived in above a dance studio in Dexter Michigan. It was there, that I was introduced to the artist, from 1999 to 2000 as he frequently came to visit my boss, Glenn, at the furniture shop behind the main street where I used to apprentice. :"I recall visiting Bob’s tightly cramped living space stocked with paintings covering the walls and a tiny kitchenette area off to the right. Sculptures ranging from clay to cardboard encased the room while flat surfaces were consumed with his latest computer drawings. The only uncluttered space was a small open spot on his desk for his computer mouse to reside and a small area on his bed for him to recuperate between artistic bursts".-Kris. Spitale, 2007.

In 2004 after another stroke, Bailey moved into the VA Hospital in Grand Rapids where he has lived for the past four years. During his residence, he has used whatever media he can latch onto. Occasionally it has been paper or canvas but more recently he has been transferring older computer drawings onto the sides of ceramic plates and vases and painting new creations using glaze. Although he is not as mobile with his art, at the age of 85 after three strokes, his creativity still imbues.

Bailey’s latest one-man show in July 2008 at Eastern Michigan University’s Ford Gallery captures the gamut of his life as an artist. The show reflects his early drawings and proceeds to encapsulate his artistic career from his life in Chicago to his more recent computer graphic art prints and painted ceramic pieces.

Bailey’s background in art has included drawing, sculpture, computer art, poetry, painting, wall relief, lithography, silk screening, photography, creative writing, stage design, mask making and mural and ceramic painting. His academic studies in philosophy and psychology help culminate an art experience to be enjoyed by both artists and scholars.

Bailey has been using computers to create paintings and graphics since 1983, first using the Apple 2 e and a dot matrix printer and then later upgrading to color ribbons for an enhanced vivid output. He currently uses an apple G5 laptop and prints with color ink.

Changing from Mac to IBM and back to a Mac, going from dot matrix to laser prints, his art using the keyboard and mouse with new print media has greatly changed his work. Bailey believes that he has always been moving into the 21st century knowing it is only the beginning of the way artists will express themselves into interpreting the future of art.

His archives are held at the Chicago Public Library.