The thing that lifted up Bill Murray at a career low years ago can still be found in Chicago.
The Illinois-born actor and star of the forthcoming “St. Vincent” told the Chicago Sun-Times his first experience on stage "was so bad" that he walked out following the performance and started wandering Chicago's streets.
En route to Lake Michigan, Murray found himself at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Inside he discovered the painting that arguably turned around his creative life: 19th-century French painter Jules Breton's “Song of a Lark."
The painting of a young woman looking skyward while working in a field with a sunrise behind her reassured Murray, he said, and signaled to him that he would get another chance at his art.
“I saw it that night and said, ‘Look, there’s a girl without a whole lot of prospects, but the sun’s coming up and she’s got another chance at it,’" he said.
The painting can be found in the museum's Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture gallery.
Image credit: The Art Institute of Chicago, Henry Field Memorial Collection
