The seven west windows on the fourth floor of the Union League Club of Chicago once again provide no view or focus.

For more than three years, they have been covered by large paintings, depicting the Seven Lively Arts, which were displayed for many years at Riccardo's, a former restaurant on Chicago's Rush Street.

The works were acquired, reassembled and conserved by Chicago attorney and philanthropist Seymour H. Persky, an ISBA Senior Counsellor. He loaned the collection to the Union League Club, where he had chaired the art committee and served on the board.

The Seven Lively Arts were unveiled Sept. 20, 2002, in the Rendezvous room, and they were taken down last month for future displays in other venues.

“It was our own midwestern version of the Paris Left Bank, with singing waiters joined at times by Ric Riccardo himself,” Persky said in 2002. “I'm very pleased to be able to restore and preserve this unusual piece of Chicago art history.”

He was first introduced to the Seven Lively Arts during the heyday of the restaurant by Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. Putting the collection back together has been “the fulfillment of a fantasy,” he said.

The Union League Club board adopted a resolution Dec. 13 in appreciation for Persky's enterprise in searching for and acquiring the pieces, and for graciously allowing them to be mounted in the clubhouse.

“We gratefully thank Seymour H. Persky for his great generosity and express our deep appreciation for his loan of The Seven Lively Arts and support of the Club,” the resolution concluded.

Persky also was instrumental in acquiring a replica of a distinctive 1900 entryway from the Metro subway in Paris and arranging for its installation at the entrance to Chicago's Metra station at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street.

The installation was dedicated on Bastille Day (July 14) 2005 during a ceremony attended by Mayor Richard M. Daley and Richard Barbeyron, consul general of France in Chicago.

An ardent supporter of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, the Com-mission on Chicago Landmarks and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Persky is a 1952 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law.

He practiced law for 25 years before be-ginning to invest in residential real estate. His development company owns and manages apartment buildings throughout the Chicago area.