The McHenry County Community Foundation has granted $20,000 toward a planned mural honoring Orson Welles and other hometown heroes in Woodstock, Illinois.
Conceived by Woodstock City Councilman RB Thompson and graphic designer Michael Stanard, the mural and informational kiosk on the Main Street Pedway will feature four of Woodstock’s cultural legends: Welles, Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould, the 1993 movie Groundhog Day; and stars of the Woodstock Opera House.
“McHenry County Community Foundation’s generous award will enable this unique public art project to be enjoyed by every Woodstock resident and visitor,” Mural Steering Committee member Tina Hill told the Northwest Herald. “We greatly appreciate the Foundation’s wonderful support to help us celebrate and memorialize Woodstock’s cultural treasures.”
The mural committee has already raised about $50,000 toward a $60,000 goal, according to Terry Willcockson, grant writer with the city of Woodstock.
Those wishing to donate can find more details at woodstockmural.org/support
Phases two and three of the project include an eventual sculpture garden honoring Welles and others and archway, but those have yet to be funded.
The project’s total cost has been estimated at $80,000, Stanard told Wellesnet in a February interview.
Noted muralist Mark J. Adamany of Rockford, Illinois, will create the artwork on the wall bordering the walkway adjacent to Classic Cinemas Woodstock Theatre. The Welles sculpture will be created and donated by artist Bobby Joe Scribner of Woodstock.
The mural panel depicting Welles features a late 1930s Welles at a CBS radio microphone next to a War of the Worlds poster. It also features artwork from his landmark movie Citizen Kane.
Welles was educated at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock from 1926 to 1931. He organized the Todd Theatre Festival in 1934 and visited the Woodstock campus in the years that followed. His eldest daughter, Chris Welles Feder, attended Todd in the late 1940s.
Gould lived in Woodstock during the final 50 years of his life and is buried there. The romantic comedy Groundhog Day was filmed in Woodstock and the Opera House is a local landmark with a rich history.
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