Lily Tolpo, Sculptor and Artist, Dies at 97

Lily Tolpo, 97, of Stockton, Illinois, passed away peacefully in the early evening of January 30, 2015 at the Elizabeth Nursing Home in Elizabeth, Illinois. The family appreciated the quality hospice care provided by FHN and the Elizabeth Nursing Home. Lily is survived by three children: Christine T. Bader and husband Roy Bader, Carolyn T. (Charles E. Smith) Smith, Vincent C. Tolpo and wife Carolyn L. Tolpo; three grandchildren: Lydia S. Smith and husband Gary C. Griggs, Mark T. Smith and wife Sara C. Smith, Michael Inglesh and wife Evonne Inglesh; and two great granddaughters: Scarlet C. Smith and Amanda Z. Inglesh. Preceding her in death were her parents, her husband, and four brothers. Memorial contributions in Lily Tolpo's name may be made to The Freeport Art Museum, 121 North Harlem Avenue, Freeport, Illinois 61032. Memory tributes may be made at Schwarz Funeral Homes’ website: www.schwarzfh.com. Memorial services will be arranged by the family in the spring.

About Lily Tolpo

Lily Mark Tolpo was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1917 and married artist, Carl A. E. Tolpo, in 1941. They made their first studios/homes at Chicago’s historic Tree Studios #5 and then at the Italian Court building at 141 E. Ontario, Chicago, Illinois. Later they designed and built studio/gallery homes in Barrington, Illinois (1954) and Stockton, Illinois (1969). Lily Tolpo, recognized for her works depicting Abraham Lincoln, was awarded the Lincoln Academy of Illinois' Order of Lincoln Award in 2009. Her philosophy of life, “To Live is to Give,” touched the lives of many private and public communities. A former vaudevillian, she often entertained by playing tunes on her fiddle. She was the Illinois State palmist at folk festivals and made numerous appearances as “Zorita” the fortune teller. She lived a creative life, encouraging all the arts for her family and community. Each of her children became professional artists.

Lily was a graduate of Lindbloom High School (’34) and attended The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts on scholarship. She made her professional debut in 1941 at an Illinois Society of Fine Art One Artist Show held at the Chicago Drake Hotel. She has been referenced in Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who of American Women, Artists of Renown, Dictionary of International Biography, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Catalog of American Portraits.

Some of Lily Tolpo’s most noted works include:

· "Lincoln & Douglas in Debate,” a life sized bronze sculpture in Freeport, Illinois.

· "Julia Dent Grant," heroic bronze sculpture for The Ulysses S. Grant Home in Galena, Illinois.

· "Law and Justice Chandelier" at the Waukegan, Illinois, Courthouse.

· "President U.S. Grant,” part of Great American Series sculptures.

· "General Grant" standing, part of Great American Series sculptures.

· "Mary Lincoln,” part of Great American Series sculptures.

· "Reading Lincoln" bronze sculpture dedicated in 2011 at the Freeport Library in Freeport, Illinois.

· Bronze friezes on the Lincoln monument Lake County Courthouse, Illinois.

· "Minuteman" sculptures for Minutemen of America in Peoria, Illinois.

· "Whoofle, the Magic Dragon," bronze sculpture for Ross Gardens at Krape Park in Freeport, Illinois.

· "Biographical Portraits" awarded for Community Leadership to Local and National Leaders of the Black Community by the Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago, Illinois. 127 portraits in all were created.

· "Patricia Nixon," a commemorative portrait of the First Lady.

· "Birth of Texas," a commemorative painting about the founding of Texas.

· Commemorative paintings of local historical and special events.

· Biographical portraits of local Illinois community leaders.

Many sculptures, paintings, drawings, letters, and ephemera are found in the Carl Tolpo and Lily Tolpo collection at the Illinois State Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, Springfield, IL.

About the Tri-Quad Sculpture

In 1983, Lily Tolpo designed a sculpture called the "Tri-Quad: Interdependence.” It was a monument to show the universality of humanity. Lily's vision was that humanity can live in peace, flourishing forever through understanding: Enlightenment forms hope. Service builds harmony. Joy drives giving.

The Tri-Quad sculpture has three legs and four pans. Each leg has three facets that form a triangular tube, converging to a point at the end of each leg. Two legs point upward. The third leg points down. The four pans represent: creativity at the top, next is control, service is at the core, the consumer at the foundation. The sculpture has a complex system of symbolisms that shows the way toward peace and harmony through a viable understanding of our interdependence.

A Brief Biography of Lily Tolpo

Lily Rose Mark Tolpo was born in Chicago, Illinois, 1917.

Her parents were father, Sing Hong Mark, American-born Chinese and mother, Mary Labuda born in Novy Targ, Hungary (now in Poland). Lily had four younger brothers, Fred, Arthur, David, and Eugene. All predecease her. All were associated with the building trades. Three were veterans of WWII. The Mark family survived the Great Depression by opening a small restaurant across from Midway Airport in 1926. In 1957, the restaurant was sold. Mark's Chinese-American Food Restaurant was located at 62nd and Cicero in Chicago. Its former location is now under a Frontier airlines gate at the enlarged Midway airport.

Sing Hong Mark was born to father Sing Wing Shing and mother Wong Shee in San Francisco, California, in 1891. Mary Rose Labuda was born in 1897. On May 3, 1912, Mary Labuda walked out of Hungary and into Poland, where she met a group of farm-worker recruits and traveled to Wisconsin, USA, to work off her passage. Eventually she made her way to Chicago, where she united with other Labuda family members. Mary Rose also brought her parents, Andrew Labuda and Rose Mozden Labuda, to Chicago.

Mary Rose Labuda and Sing Hong Mark met in Chicago, where they both worked at the Cinderella Restaurant and Jazz Club. They married and lived at 7634 South Cottage Grove Ave in Chicago. They moved to 6219 Cicero Ave when Lily was seven years old.

While attending Chicago's Lindbloom High School, Lily helped in the family restaurant—doing everything from cooking, cleaning, and waiting on customers to making the signs and printing the menus. She even had her own walk-up window where she sold "FOO" sandwiches of her own design. Her brothers were younger, sold papers, and did what they could to contribute to family funds. Lily loved school and knew she couldn't go to college so she took as many classes of subjects as she felt she could use. She took double classes in art and music (orchestra) and participated in every athletic class; swimming, fencing, gymnastics and rhythmic dance.

Commercial courses included typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, salesmanship, and business organization. Lily studied botany and zoology. She loved math but had to sacrifice classes beyond advanced algebra. (She later learned geometry by studying on her own, knowing that would be important in sculpture.)

Upon high school graduation, she received a full scholarship to the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. It was then located on the 12th floor at 18 S. Michigan Blvd, and served as the School for the Art Institute until 1936 when the school was moved across Michigan Blvd to The Chicago Art Institute. Ruth Van Sickle Ford bought the name and facilities of the Chicago Fine Art Academy in 1937. Coincidentally, Carl Tolpo, Lily's future husband, was a lunching friend of Ms. Ford at the same time that Lily was attending the academy. Lily had access to the Art Institute and its studio classes while at the Academy.

During the summers, Lily traveled the country with a vaudeville eight-piece girls Country Western orchestra, The Hollywood Cowgirls, starring Dot Hackley. Lily performed as "fiddler" or violinist, depending on the kind of format they were presenting. They played short gigs, onstage, and radio to promote it. Most popular was their country western show with Dot Hackley and her spectacular rope spinning tricks. Dot would spin a rope around Lily while she fiddled "ho-down" tunes. The Latin Show was also good and they produced a popular Jazz show occasionally. During the day, Lily would roam the area making sketches to document her experience at the advice of her teachers. When she returned for the school year at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, the teachers would critique the sketches. Lily attended classes on and off from 1934 to 1940.

On March 3, 1940, Lily attended the Picasso show at The Art Institute for a special viewing—by invitation only—aimed at art patrons, students, artists, and professionals. Lily really didn't like what Picasso expressed in his works, but was trying to understand his mysterious power and fame.

In front of the large mural of "Guernica," there was someone making an impassioned speech about it. A crowd had assembled. Lily joined the crowd and was fascinated with the commentary. It expressed what she felt about the work and the more she heard, the more she listened. Soon she noticed that she was the only one left. So Lily Mark and Carl Tolpo took it from there. In 1941, they were married. Their bond was their deep convictions in certain basic values of fine art and of public conscience.

Lily made her professional debut with a one-artist show in 1941 under the auspices of the All Illinois Society of Fine Art at the Drake Hotel, Chicago, Illinois. It was decided between her and Carl that she would put her career on hold for 10 years while she began their family. In the interim, they all backed Carl who continued a successful portrait and landscape painting and sculpture career. Lily and Carl raised three children from 1942 to 1964, and then Lily restarted her art career.

The family lived at five places between 1941 and 1970:

· Tree Studio building, 4 E. Ohio St. Chicago, Illinois—June 1941 to August 1941

· Italian Court building, 141 E. Ontario St. Chicago, Illinois—1941 to 1953

· RR2 on US route 30, Frankfort, Illinois—1953 to 1955

· 25 Oakdene Rd, Barrington Hills, Illinois—1955 to 1969

· Uusi Kuori, 5394 S. Massbach Rd, Stockton, Illinois—1969 to 2015

Despite her role as mother, Lily managed to do many commissioned art works or portraits part-time at Tolpo Studios. Lily designed figurines for mass production and greeting cards for a publishing house. She continued in theater, with puppet shows using her children and others who cared to join in. These shows were a family effort: making the puppets, the stage, the props—and writing the scripts.

Lily was on the board of directors of the Elgin Civic Symphony and played in the violin section. She inspired her children to play violin and cello in the orchestra. All of her children are musicians and fine artists today. This was a household devoted to the arts.

The 41 years that Lily lived in Stockton, Illinois, were perhaps her most productive studio time. Just after moving to Stockton, Illinois, Lily helped found the Heritage League of Stockton. In a short time, portrait commissions were taken. In 1970, Lily designed a large 10 x 20 x 20 feet chandelier for the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois. By 1973, Lily was invited into the Lena, Illinois, chapter of the Beta Sigma Phi sorority, a community service organization.

Because of the Finnish heritage of the Tolpo family, the studio/home on Massbach Road was called Uusi Kuori, Finnish words meaning New Shell. There Lily and Carl had parties featuring Lily's Chinese cooking. Large scale art projects such as the heroic stature of Everett M. Dirksen for the Illinois Capitol lawn and Yellowstone murals were the crowning success of their years together in Stockton. After Carl's death in 1976, Lily became the lead artist at Uusi Kuori. She was assisted by her artist children, who by then were living elsewhere in Illinois/Colorado, Hawaii/Florida, and New Jersey/Arizona. Lily worked continuously on her many large projects and also many more small individual projects from painting mailboxes to portraits of children and farms. Lily married Louis Jerson in 1986. They divorced in 1996.

Lily would often share her great satisfaction in art, recalls daughter Carolyn Tolpo (Charles E. Smith) Smith. Experiences with Lily in Smith family life included: hunting with Charles, chopping down a family Christmas tree, telling creative stories and tales, and crafting amazing appearances—pretend or otherwise. A lullaby from Lily’s own childhood was sung for her own children, her grandchildren Lydia and Mark, and most recently for Scarlet, her great-granddaughter. If life is a canvas, Lily made it sing with a special flair and lots of color.

Lily Tolpo’s life was contentment with a dash of turmoil and insecurity. Lily was truly one of a kind: a talented artist and a musician, stubborn, determined, and generous. Lily's family, her work, and the constant creative effort toward worthwhile goals established her belief, "To Live is to Give."

Lily Tolpo Quotes

Artist Lily Tolpo’s philosophy of life, “To Live is to Give:”

To live is to give.

To give, one must have.

To have one must get or be given.

Given or gotten, one must use it wisely, or

one will lose it.

One must know what one wants, or

one might get what one does not want.

Lily Tolpo, accomplished artist, defined art as follows: "Art can be a vehicle by which we find a means of evaluating life. Through our senses, art leads us to the realm of truth. Truth and beauty are values individuals discover for themselves. My life as an artist was devoted to creating works that express beautiful truths that I discovered, learned, and experienced. When others gain satisfying pleasure, expanded perception, or inspired purpose from viewing my works then I will have reached my artistic goals."

Resources on Lily Tolpo

Information on Lily Tolpo’s life and works are listed in the following references:

· Who's Who in American Art—1973

· Who's Who of American Women—1981-82

· Dictionary of International Biography American Artist of Renown—1982

· Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery inventory

· AskArt.com

· ArtPrice.com

· ArtbyTolpoArtist.com

· http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/lily+tolpo/all

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