Halim Time & Glass Museum – Evanston IL

Halim Time & Stained Glass Museum– 1560 Oak Ave., Evanston, IL     http://halimmuseum.org

Q-tips say:  See it and enjoy the beauty. We and our friends did enjoy.  It is two floors and there is an elevator and a handicap entrance.   Downstairs are the restrooms, tables/chairs for eating their snacks/drinks  from the vending machine. They offer guided tours at 1:00.   They are working on the third floor to have rotating exhibits which they intend to have completed by the end of this year. 

Mrs. Q says: The heart of this collection is the clocks. When climbing the stairs, look up: the building’s topped with a zodiac-themed stained glass dome.  Left at the top of the stairs is a reproduction of the large mechanical clock.  The oldest clocks here mostly date back to about 1500, though there is a sundial from Egyptian times.  The Japanese clocks (beautiful and apparently with 9 hours instead of 12) were fascinating; the French industrial clocks (shaped like trains; steam engines; automobiles) very interesting; and there’s a giant collection of paste-encrusted Chinese clocks with automata and one plain automaton (a boy pulling a fish out of a net), in addition to a collection of navigational tools (clock-ish; another stained glass dome); “skeleton” clocks with the works exposed; and the sort of fancy porcelain bisque clocks one might expect.  There aren’t a lot of “mystere” clocks (where one is left wondering where on earth the mechanism is hidden.   Pocket watches from various local factories (Elgin!)  and some interesting old advertisements praising the watches’ durability. Yes, they have videos showing how many of the clocks work in action.

A fine collection of Tiffany windows; John LaFarge; Frederick Lamb, and an artist I’d never heard of, Mary Tillinghast, with wonderful deep colors.  There’s one Prairie School window and a few skylights from the old Auditorium theater downtown.  There’s also a giant Tiffany window of a Madonna and child with the painting it’s based on and the original photographs, and another giant Tillinghast.  There is a small display window of arts-and-crafts furniture designed by Tiffany as part of the furnishings for an entire house (including two lamps); some of his watercolors; a few mosaics; a sample panel traveling salesmen used to sell the famous lamps; and even a setting of silver flatware by the other Tiffany.

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