By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Peggy Johns, a collector of artist Frank McElwain's work, gets a hug from him after buying "The Court Street Market." (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

Cincinnati's history can be found in a multitude of places - in faded photographs, in the black-and-white pages of books, in artifacts kept in glass cases.

And, sometimes, it can be found on canvas, in brilliant color.

Dozens of original paintings by Frank McElwain are on display at Closson's Downtown Gallery through Jan. 31, many of them streetscapes depicting life in Cincinnati in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The pictures are, at the same time, gritty street-level views and an idealized view of a simpler time.

The closest most Cincinnatians will ever get to knowing what long-gone places like the Court Street Market and Jabez Elliott's market of fresh-cut flowers on Sixth Street actually looked like is through the lens of Mr. McElwain's art.

"I don't claim to be a historian," Mr. McElwain said Saturday, as early visitors examined the two dozen paintings hung for his latest Closson's exhibition.

"But I want the viewer to come away for a feel of what it was like to be there 100 years ago."

For many of his Cincinnati paintings, Mr. McElwain studies a photograph of a historic building just to learn its shape and architecture and how it fit into its surroundings.

The rest, he said, "is pure imagination. I don't paint photographs. I just make it up."

Grew up along river

Mr. McElwain came to Cincinnati in 1962, after growing up in Ironton, Ohio, along the Ohio River. As a boy, he studied the art of movie posters, copied the works of Old Masters, drew his own comic strip.

"My father said, `Frank, artists are a dime a dozen. Find something else to do.' "

IF YOU GO

What: Exhibition by Cincinnati artist Frank McElwain. When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday through Jan. 31 Where: Closson's Downtown Gallery, 401 Race St. Information: 762-5510

So, as a young man, he came to Cincinnati and entered the University of Cincinnati as a pre-law student. Not long after getting his bachelor's degree, he was struck by a car and seriously injured. During his long convalescence, he said, he decided he didn't really want to be a lawyer; he wanted to paint.

Over the years, as his reputation grew, his paintings became fixtures in the lobbies of Cincinnati corporations and in the living rooms of private homes. Since 1988, he has been the official artist for the Tall Stacks celebration of the steamboat era, painting river scenes past and present.

In his current exhibit, his personal favorite is his painting of a turn-of-the-century scene at Court Street Market, the produce and meat market that stood in the middle of Court Street between Vine and Walnut streets from just after the Civil War until it was torn down in 1915.

The viewer can look at the market and down the street to the Hamilton County courthouse in the background. There are housewives inspecting produce; chickens running loose from their cages as their owner stands by unawares; a lone newsboy sitting on a stack of newspapers and watching the passing parade.

As Mr. McElwain stood next to the Court Street Market painting and explained its details to a visitor, his wife, Dianne, also an artist, came up and slapped a red sticker next to the frame, indicating it had just sold.

Mr. McElwain stopped short, smiled broadly and caught his breath.

"Whew,'' he said, "Excuse me. I'm sort of taken aback.''

But the person who bought the painting, Peggy Johns of Indian Hill, is no stranger to McElwain exhibitions. She has been collecting his work since the 1980s.

"They're just so alive,'' Ms. Johns said. "He takes you back in time."

Depicting Fountain Square

One work on display at Closson's, "Fountain Square 1903," depicts a scene just after dusk in a time before there was a concrete Fountain Square and before buildings such as the Westin Hotel and the Dubois Tower were even dreamed of.

It shows the Mabley & Carew department store, the Gayety Theater, the Hub CafÈ, all Cincinnati landmarks and all long gone. It shows rich detail as well - a man with a frosted beer mug sitting in the window of a second-floor billiard parlor at the corner of Fifth and Walnut, watching the street scene below. A shoeshine boy sits on the corner casting an admiring glance at a young girl walking along Fifth Street with her mother. The mother casts a wary glance at the boy; she is clearly not happy about having her daughter ogled.

"I do a painting like this and I ask myself, `What would I see if I were at the corner of Fifth and Walnut in 1903?' " he said. "Then I paint what I imagine."

He paints scenes of other cities and places he has visited as well - New Orleans and Savannah, Ga., are two of his favorite urban subjects. But it is the Cincinnati streetscapes that art lovers and collectors say have made him the best-known local painter since Frank Duveneck in the late 19th century.

"What I do is open a door for the viewer, to let him inside to see what our town was like," Mr. McElwain said. "What he does once I let him in is up to his own imagination."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com