From Aesthetic Integration to Applying Art: Arnold H. Maremont, the EPEC seminar, and the Planning of SIU Edwardsville

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Spring 2004 by Kerber, Stephen

Barely three weeks after the Universities Bond Issue won approval, on 30 November, Morris forced See to request to be relieved from his administrative duties.23 According to an oral history interview granted by See decades later, Morris immediately ordered the repossession of See's official car and had the locks on See's office changed. Morris gave See a meaningless reassignment as research professor in Carbondale.24 See decided to leave the university a few months later to accept a position in Ceylon as chief educational advisor for the International Cooperation Administration of the U. S. Department of State.25 Heedless of student and faculty protests, Morris informed the Southwestern Illinois faculty that he would now provide personal direction there.26

It was against the backdrop of these tumultuous events that Morris became involved with Arnold Marement. At the EPEC news conference, Maremont related that his interest in SIU had begun during the 1960 general election campaign, while he had worked throughout the state on behalf of mental health care reform in Illinois.27 Maremont had been born in Chicago on 24 August 1904. He entered the University of Chicago in 1922 and received a juris doctor degree from the law school in 1926. During the 1930s, Maremont went into business for himself in St. Louis as a homebuilder and while living there met the woman who became his wife. In 1940, he returned to Chicago and to the family business, the Maremont automotive products company.28

Maremont enjoyed a passion for collecting art and an interest in public affairs. He and his wife had decorated their Lake Shore Drive apartment and their Winnetka home with a significant personal collection of modern abstract art and contemporary statuary.29 A Democrat in his politics, Maremont had supported Otto Kerner in his successful 1960 gubernatorial race and he harbored major political aspirations of his own. In turn, Kerner valued Maremont's support and appointed him to a six-year term (1961-1967) on the SIU Board of Trustees on 28 March 1961.30

The idea behind the EPEC seminar originated in the mind of Arnold Maremont.31 Even before Kerner announced his board appointment, Maremont hosted a 10 March 1961 meeting in his North Michigan Avenue office that included Delyte Morris, Gyo Obata, university architect Charles Pulley, and the new (as of 1 March) Edwardsville staff architect, John Randall. Maremont suggested that the university should arrange for a symposium featuring a panel of invited guests who would discuss "the role of the plastic arts in the design of a campus." He further suggested that the proposed symposium be held in East St. Louis, he offered to moderate the event, and he generously obligated himself to help pay the expenses.32

That Morris would journey to Chicago with all his major planning associates simply to accommodate Maremont is testimony to the potential significance he saw in the Maremont connection. Maremont's wealth, his social and cultural contacts in the great metropolis of Chicago, his close association with Governor Kerner, his appointment to the board, and his political dreams for the future made him a very important person that Morris felt anxious to cultivate. Moreover, the planning event that Maremont envisioned would enable Morris to generate an abundance of positive publicity for the Edwardsville campus and perhaps make people in the Metro East forget about previous unpleasantnesses. Morris realized that, as Charles Pulley remarked in a memo summarizing the meeting, to hold Maremont's "interest and desire to help Southern Illinois University we must expedite development of" the Chicagoan's "indicated approach in our campus planning."33