Courtesy of the Women's Club, Mrs. Herman Hall, of the Chicago Art Institute, spoke at the Withers Library on the design of the San Francisco World's Fair. She presented photos and drawings of the fair grounds and described the decisions made as the fair was built. The reporter stated that Mrs. Hall spoke without notes and had a conversational style at times.
Mrs. Hall's presentation was one of three planned. Bloomington often took its cue from Chicago, and Lena McCauley of the Chicago Evening Post would speak in March. Victor Higgins, a Chicago artist, had also been retained as a speaker for the series.
While she was in Bloomington, Mrs Hall also spoke at a tea regarding the woodblock art of Helen Hyde, a California artist who frequently lived in Japan for very long periods. Mrs Hall described the use of woodblocks in making the art and the ways in which Miss Hyde had departed from the Japanese traditions. The display of these prints at Withers had been publicized in the Pantagraph some days prior and were a display the library was very proud of. Perhaps the one featured here was on display.
"An artist has eyes that we do not posess, for the eye can be trained as well as the ear. An artist sees lines of color that you never dream of. His eye is so trained that he can see colors in the very atmosphere." This statement presents rather succinctly the reverence that many Bloomingtonians and Normalites had for art and its expression.