on the historic..
Nortown Theater...
Chicago, Illinois,
~ I present ~
Art Deco Nortown Spandrel Panel Nr D7
Modelled by Randall



WEIGHT:20-25#.
Some of the limited number of ornaments were salvaged and were for sale, most of these exterior pieces were quite large at over 30" wide and 20" high, 4-6" deep, my version of this will be in a more apartment/home friendly size/weight at around 21-1/2" by 13-3/4. "My version of the Nortown theater frieze panel is available now.
As a sculptor who specializes in these works I create pieces that will complement your home, garden, or business.
Thus, there were only 15 panels with this design and 5 each of the masks made, most were salvaged and sold by an antique firm in Chicago for $750 and a hefty price of $1850 respectively.
After this first panel, I modelled the other two panels with the tragedy and comedy masks, thus, the series of three of these panels are completed and available individually or as a set. The 4th panel with only a simple circle and a couple of squares was not worth recreating.
This ornaments on the building were probably made by the major company that supplied much of these to architects in Chicago- Midland Terra Cotta Co.
It's curtains for Nortown; 2 smaller cinemas to take place of old.
Chicago Sun-Times, Aug 4, 2007 by Teresa Sewell
The old Nortown Theater is finally coming down.
The grand movie house hasn't featured a film since 1990, but the building -- famous for its striking seahorse, mermaid and zodiac motifs -- has stood its ground at 6320 N. Western since 1931.
Demolition of the Nortown began in 2007. Amrit Patel, who owns several Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins locations, wants to build a 70-unit, six-story condo building on the site.
Note that the terracotta is ONLY available in brick red and ONLY on a limited selection- the designs in the TERRACOTTA category, not to be confused with the red terracotta FINISH! which is on cast-stone only.

Prices include shipping and are shown on each sculpture on the CART PAGES.
I use FEDEX ground service for all shipments in the lower 48 states. I do not ship outside the USA.

If you are looking for something for the garden or to build into a wall, I offer a growing number of hand-pressed, kiln fired red terracotta works. for many reasons, concrete is no longer available.
All of my interior sculptures have a heavy wire embedded on the back to hang them on the wall.
These hand sculpted models are created from scratch by Randall in water based clay, and typically take an average of 20-30 hours to set up, layout and sculpt each master model.
When the clay master models are finished, they are permanently captured with silicone mold compounds which can pick up even a fingerprint and faithfully transfer it to a cast made in it. From the molds, interior cast-stone as well as a growing number of kiln fired terracotta sculptures are made available for clients to purchase.
Existing savaged pieces are limited to what happens to be for sale at high prices, often damaged, rarely found in pairs and being typically large in scale (meant to be seen from the street from 5 floors below) they are difficult to display in today's smaller homes and apartments. Instead of making molds of these pieces, Randall creates new original models based on authentic 19th century and early 20th century Victorian, Art Deco and Louis Sullivan style architectural sculptures. While I do have a small number of older designs directly molded from antique pieces, these are being phased out over time as I create my own original models.
By no means! keep in mind- your walls weigh thousands of pounds and support the roof. HOWEVER- do not use plastic or self adhesive picture hangars of any kind, or try to simply put a screw into the thin sheetrock-these will not hold, and are not designed to.
Install your mounting hooks or other hangars into the solid wood STUD inside the wall, these are spaced 16" apart. You should use an anchor rated to hold at least twice the shipping weight of the sculpture.
To show what a sheetrock wall can hold, here is a photo of two shelves I installed on my bedroom wall for original sculptures that I couldn't mount any other way, the brackets are screwed into the wall studs with 3" screws. The weight for the stone and terra-cotta shown-the top shelf; 175# and 125# for the lower shelf- 300# total.
