Halim Time and Glass Museum – Spanning the History of Timekeeping

 

Halim Time and Glass Museum
Image: halimmuseum.org

Cameel Halim is a well established Chicago area real estate executive who guides CH Ventures, LLC. With a longstanding passion for timepieces and objects of art, Cameel Halim and his wife recently opened the doors of the Halim Time and Glass Museum.

An October 2017, Daily Northwestern article described the Evanston, Illinois museum as offering a “step back in time,” with its colorful corridors filled with antique stained glass and exquisite clocks. In all, some 1,100 timepieces from locales around the world reside in the collection. The first floor is dedicated to stained glass windows and provides examples of some of the finest pieces from the American school.

The museum’s second floor is home to the diverse array of timepieces that range from those commissioned by Catherine the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte to Egyptian sundials. Also included are timekeeping devices such as automatons, chronometers, pocket watches, and tower clocks. The unique value proposition presented by the museum is that it represents a rare private collection spanning the breadth of the full history of timekeeping, in a way that ties together cultural and economic narratives.

The Career of Artist Mary Tillinghast

 

Mary Tillinghast
Image: phlf.org

The recipient of a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Cairo University, Cameel Halim is a distinguished real estate investor who serves as president of Illinois’ CH Ventures, LLC. Along with his wife and family, Cameel Halim is a passionate timepiece and stained glass collector who recently opened the Halim Time & Glass Museum to display his extensive collection, which includes masterpiece windows from acclaimed American artists including Mary Tillinghast.

Born in 1845, Tillinghast traveled extensively throughout Europe and studied painting in Paris under Emile-Auguste Carolus-Duran, who also taught American painter John Singer Sargent. Tillinghast began making decorative glass window art in 1878 upon forging a partnership with fellow painter and muralist John La Farge. Through seven years of working with La Farge, Tillinghast became an expert in textile design and worked in an executive role with the La Farge Decorative Art Company.

Working out of her Greenwich Village studio, she designed numerous windows for churches, residences, and institutions, some of which earned gold medals at various world’s fairs. Tillinghast’s first major project, Jacob’s Dream, was installed in New York City’s Grace Episcopal Church in 1887. Her other notable windows include Urania and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which were installed in the Allegheny Observatory and the New York Historical Society, respectively.