Art Legacy League Open House, November 20

Friday, November 20, 3 p.m.

Art Legacy League, 1225 East River Drive, #201, Davenport IA

Held in celebration of its new location on River Drive, Davenport's Art Legacy League will host an open house on November 20, with the special event boasting a ribbon-cutting, art activities, and demonstrations, and the group itself dedicated to honoring and preserving the artistic and teaching legacy of Father Edward M. Catich, whose works will be on display throughout the building.

A Roman Catholic priest, teacher, calligrapher, and longtime instructor at Davenport's St. Ambrose University, Fr. Catich is noted for the fullest development of the thesis that the inscribed Roman square capitals of the Augustan age and afterward owed their form and their characteristic serifs wholly to the use of the flat brush, rather than to the exigencies of the chisel or other stone-cutting tools. He studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1926 to 1929, and supported himself as a union sign-writer. The artist also worked as the leader of the school band, and received a master's degree in art at Iowa City's University of Iowa. In 1935, Catich traveled to Rome to study for the priesthood at Pontifical Gregorian University, where he also studied archaeology and paleography. Fr. Catich was ordained in 1938, and returned to Iowa to teach art, math, engineering, and music at St. Ambrose. He taught there for 40 years, until his death in 1979, and the university now holds roughly 4,000 of his works housed at the Edward M. Catich Memorial Gallery in the Galvin Fine Arts Center.

During the November 20 open house, the Art Legacy League will have examples of Fr. Catich's works on display, among them beautiful slate inscriptions, calligraphic broadsides, splendid watercolors of serene European vistas, and river scenes dotted with landscapes and buildings. Catich’s abstract expressionist work will also be on exhibit, and the open house will also boast: demonstrations of calligraphy, stone incising, and watercolor painting; stone-cutting and watercoloring art activities; art talks about Fr. Catich and his work; prize drawings; and refreshments.

The Art Legacy League Open House begins at 3 p.m. on November 20, with the ribbon cutting by group sponsor Molly Newell and members of the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce taking place at 4 p.m. Reservations to the free event are recommended, and more information is available by e-mailing paulherrera1949@gmail.com or amysnielsen@gmail.com.