Mitch Markovitz is a fine artist and professional illustrator who also happens to be a railroader. His love of railways, particularly the South Shore Line interurban is the wellspring of his extensive art career.

While a locomotive engineer on the South Shore he became its first Art Director, producing posters, timetable art, and the graphic design and control for, color schemes, striping and number boards for the railroad’s passenger cars. He has the distinction of having helped create the subject of his art.

Mitch understands trains and our relationship with them. His artistic training and range of styles bring to life the evocative power of these machines, the railroads themselves, and the people who travel and work on them.

“The Art of Mitch Markovitz” is the first comprehensive collection of Mitch’s entire body of work – fine art, illustration and posters. Materials appear from his special commissions including the “Just Around the Corner” poster series depicting the South Shore Line in northwest Indiana and his paintings from “Postcards from My 10‐Year Vacation” series in New York City. Mitch was the first painter to exhibit fine art at the New York City Transit Museum and his work is currently on display in several major American art museums.

Mitch became inspired by the artists who created the Insull Transit Posters – a series of monthly posters displayed at Chicago transit stations to promote ridership on the Insull-controlled interurban railways and elevated lines of the 1920s by featuring sites and attractions that could be conveniently and easily reached.

In Mitch’s work you will understand the influence of fine artists Edward Hopper and Maxfield Parrish, the illustrators Norman Rockwell, Oscar Rabe Hanson, Leslie Ragan, Griff Teller, and Maurice Logan, the chronicler of railroads William D. Middleton, the founders and financiers of electric railways Samuel Insull, Samuel Insull Jr and their dedicated and determined managers Britton I Budd, Bernard J Fallon and most endearingly the trainman, characters and friends with whom Mitch apprenticed and served on the South Shore Line – Ed Hedstrom, Chet Piotrowski, Dick “High Pockets” Shipley, Diamond Jon Miller and the many who remain his friends and usual suspects!

Mitch Markovitz, through his railroading and his art, secures forever a time, a place and a subject. I now understand the meaning of his title: Artist-Illustrator-Railwayman.