Hanover Park gives 4 the Warhol treatment
Hanover Park selected a former mayor, a rock musician, a society writer and a world-famous nurse for its four notable residents to receive Andy Warhol-inspired portraits for the DuPage Pop Art Challenge.
Mayor Rod Craig unveiled the giant mural at the village's Ontarioville Plaza this week. The event was capped off by a musical performance from portrait subject Keith Semple.
Along with Semple, onetime member of the Chicago-based band 7th heaven, the other portrait subjects are the late Hanover Park Mayor Sonya Crawshaw, the 30-year editorial director for Paper Magazine Mickey Boardman, and Alma Foerster, who in 1920 was the inaugural recipient of the Florence Nightingale Medal.
Artist Geoff Bevington created the portraits.
The DuPage Pop Art Challenge is one of several local tie-ins to the "WARHOL" exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.
Another is Hanover Park's participation in a food drive for the Hanover Township food bank. Donations of canned food are sought at the Warhol-inspired Soup Can barrels at Hanover Park village hall, police station, fire station 15, the Hanover Park Park District's main campus and the Sonya Crawshaw Branch of the Poplar Creek Public Library.
The portraits will be on display at Ontarioville Plaza as well as at village hall.
Crawshaw served three terms as village clerk and three as mayor. She was active with the Hanover Park Lions Club, served on the board of the American Cancer Society and founded the Children's Advocacy Center in 1990.
Semple, a former contestant on "American Idol" and "The Voice," got his start on the British reality show "Pop Star: The Rivals." He was a member of the band One True Voice before joining 7th heaven and is now pursuing a solo career with his band, Semple.
Boardman is a writer, socialite, philanthropist and media personality. A pillar of the New York social and fashion scenes, he has served on the board of CITTA, a charity that builds schools, clinics, and women's centers in India and Nepal.
Foerster began working as a public health nurse in Chicago. During World War I, she helped establish hospitals in Kiev, for which she received the Cross of St. Anna.