From the Chicago Tribune, Jan 22, 1915 (with reference to another painting, "Morning": This Picture Disclosed Artist Who Hid His Talent 35 Years. Max Gundlach was transformed from a plodder into a painter over night. Artists point to his 43 paintings now on exhibition in the Palette and Chisel Club at 59 E. Van Buren St. For 35 years Max Gundlach, retiring man of drooping mustaches and few words, was known about the club as the "commercial artist from Rogers Park." He was a genius at decorating "railroad" folders -- that was all. Last week several artist went browsing through the plodder's studio in Rogers Park. They found all sorts of atmosphere, composition, and feeling going to waste on many neglected canvases in the studio. The artist returned to the Palet and Chisel Club in enthusiasm over their "find." R.V. Brown, president of the club, had a committee wait upon the painter in his studio. John E. Phillips, Rudolph Ingelier, W. Victor Higgins, Gordon St. Clair, and others of the club insisted upon an immediate exhibition of the paintings. They loaded the art on a van by force, as the artist was unwilling to believe in his own arrival. After working as a wood cut engraver for 10 years, the painter said he then took up commercial work. On his days off and in long afternoons he painted scenes around his own dooryard in Rogers Park. With his daughter Jennie and his wife for models, he started to do figure study along with his excursion in the natural scenery along the Chicago river and the Budlong farm and Rowmanville nooks. These he painted without trickery or faddism. "Morning" he considers his best picture. His daughter Jennie, in idealization, gave the title to the painting. Her lavender boudoir cap and stockings, the flowing green curtain behind her, and the sunlight on the rug give a fluffy feeling of morning. (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1915/01/22/page/8/article/this-picture-disclosed-artist-who-hid-his-talent-35-years)