News

After several years of working closely with the Ragdale Foundation, the Sybil Shearer Studio at Ragdale is underway in Lake Forest. The MSF gift of 1.5 million dollars is significant at a time when arts funding is floundering, and makes it possible for the development of both the dance studio and an…

After serving MSF as a Trustee since 2002 and Chair since 2006, it is poignant to be making my last report to you before my retirement at the end of this year. I met Sybil in 1993, not through dance, but through our mutual interest in Jens Jensen and The Clearing, his…

Another longtime project is the new MSF website, launched in November, 2020, thanks to our graphic designer, Amy Jeppsen Stern, along with Carol Doty, Sue Boléa, and Corinne Pierog. Besides calling attention to current Foundation activities, the site is intentionally deep in content about Sybil, Helen, and their legacies. Until now, research…

Sybil Shearer Autobiography, Volume III NOVEMBER, 2020 The publication of Volume III of Sybil Shearer’s autobiography, Without Wings the Way Is Steep: The Reality Beyond Realism, is another major project that was finished this year. This volume is about Sybil’s later years alone in Northbrook (1985-2004) as critic, writer, and Anthroposophist. In…

In preparing to send our gift of Helen Balfour Morrison’s portraits of GREAT AMERICANS to the Newberry Library, we found negatives from which we’d never seen prints. Among them was this photograph of CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT (1859-1947), who played an essential role in gaining the right of women to vote. Just now, as…

Rare is the performer who doesn’t seek the spotlight, but beyond rare is the performer who instead devotes his life to sharing his talent, creativity and showmanship freely, with love and kindness, to generation after generation of children. Yet Winnetka is blessed to have just such a performer in Toby…

On November 13 MSF was pleased to welcome two new visitors, LIESL OLSON, Director of Chicago Studies at the Newberry, and JESSICA FRIEDMAN, PhD student at Northwestern University. Both are planning to publish work that includes Sybil Shearer — Friedman as part of her dissertation, and Olson as part of…

MSF and THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY OF CHICAGO co-sponsored the well-attended “Preservation, Tradition, and Innovation from Sybil Shearer through the Present” on June 13. Moderated by Hedy Weiss, noted performing arts critic for Chicago and national media, the program featured three panelists with film highlights. Panelists were Jan Bartoszek, founder and artistic director…

This year all of our major archives were placed in institutions where they will be cared for and be accessible for study. The Helen Balfour Morrison Collection and the Sybil Shearer Collection were gifted to the NEWBERRY LIBRARY and were featured in The Newberry Magazine, Spring/Summer 2019 issue. The Morrison…