Agatha Beiderbecke asked a close family friend, Albert Petersen, to listen to her seven-year-old son play the piano. According to the biography Bix, Man and Legend, Petersen could hardly contain his enthusiasm. “Agatha, this boy has something.” He said. “Keep me informed about his progress – and whatever you do, get him some piano lessons.” One might expect a friend – and her cousin’s husband – to be encouraging. But Petersen was also one of Davenport’s leading musicians, bandleaders, and teachers. He also began his career in music at a young age.

A trio of Midwestern artists working in a trio of artistic mediums will be displaying gorgeous new works at the Quad City Arts Center through August 11, with the Rock Island venue showcasing photography by Robin Bailey of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, oil paintings and ceramic sculpture by Janis Mars Wunderlich of Monmouth, Illinois, and oil paintings by Lee White of Muscatine, Iowa.

Insight into the iconic cartoonist responsible for Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Snoopy, and the rest of the lovable Peanuts gang will be offered in a special Figge Art Museum program on July 13, with the Davenport venue celebrating its current exhibit The Life & Art of Charles M. Schulz with a Curator Talk featuring Benjamin Clark, curator at the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

A gifted local artist and frequently featured painter at the former Bereskin Gallery & Art Gallery in Bettendorf, David Anderson will be the featured guest in a special Art Demo held at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on July 6, with Anderson's discussion on the importance of plein-air painting followed by a live demonstration by the artist.

With the eagerly anticipated weekend event hosted by Rock Island's Quad City Arts and taking place for the seventh time, glorious colors and imaginative designs will be gracing the pavement of Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park in the Quad Cities Chalk Art Fest, a June 24 and 25 summertime fixture boasting beautiful artistic creations, live music, children's activities, food and drink vendors, and more than $1,800 in cash prizes.

An exhibit of arresting works by arguably the most famous and influential American landscape photographer of the 20th century, Ansel Adams, the Sierra Club, & the Making of a Landscape Icon will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through August 27, the exhibition showcasing a spectacular suite of images from the artist's Portfolio Three: Yosemite Valley.

Boasting a dozen stunning pigment prints by the Iowa City-based visual artist, the Midwestern-themed exhibition Iowa Night Skies: Photographs by Johnny Brian will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through August 27, the included works created by the photographer exposing film over long periods after capturing the bustling sky from his backyard.

On public view at the Davenport venue for the first time in more than five years, the Figge Art Museum's exhibition Edouard Duval-Carrié: Endless Flight will be showcased in the Fourth Floor Gallery through September 17, the artist's impressive multi-part altarpiece containing dense imagery referencing Haitian spirituality, history, and politics.

Nedde Catich was a young jazz musician when he came to St. Ambrose College (now St. Ambrose University) during the Great Depression. At the time, he was playing trumpet in a jazz band at the Purple Grackle, a roadhouse just over the Cook County line. A respite for Chicago gangsters.

Possibly the most famed and beloved artist in the history of comic strips will be celebrated at the Figge Art Museum through September 3 when the Davenport venue houses The Life & Art of Charles M. Schulz, a touring salute to the talent who brightened the world for 50 years with the comedic, and sometimes melancholic, adventures of Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Snoopy, and the rest of the lovable Peanuts gang.

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