Some of Charles Vickery’s most cherished works are not maritime paintings at all but landscapes based on our own West Suburban area. In Down by the Old Mill Stream, Vickery depicts a favorite area landmark--the historic “Old Graue Mill.”

While countless local artists have undoubtedly sketched or painted the mill, this rendition is quite special. As with most of his work, rather than photographing his subject or painting it onsite, Vickery's approach was to make sketches and notations and then create a scene based on the images in his mind from a liftetime of visits.

The vivid result is representative of what we may have seen when the mill was built back in 1852, but, ultimately, the actual compostion is Vickery's. Rather than being a blueprint of an illustration, we get a chance to see the mill through the eyes of a world-renowned artist.