Art in Chicago: 1945-1995 [Hardcover]

Dennis Adrian (Author), Staci Boris (Author), John Corbett (Author), Kate Horsfield (Author), Barbara Jaffee (Author), Judith Russi Kirshner (Author), Carmela Rago (Author), Franz Schulze (Author), Peter Selz (Author), Bill Stamets (Author), Monique Meloche (Author), Dominic Molon (Author), Jeff Abell (Author, Editor), Lynne Warren (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

This survey examines the work of 150 artists who have either lived or worked in Chicago, and ranges from painting, sculpture, photography and drawing to film, video and performance art. Essays by a range of art critics and historians consider the institutions, movements, attitudes and ideas that have shaped Chicago over the past 50 years, while over 170 colour reproductions are set amid a running timeline of historical events in both Chicago and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This catalog and the exhibit on which it is based, mounted by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago, documents art in a broad range of media by artists based in the Windy City. There is much to like about this exhibition catalog; the layout is attractive, and in many ways the book is genuinely informative. It is divided into five areas, each encompassing a decade of Chicago art, with at least one piece from each year. A time line provides historical background, and short biographies of the artists, plus a checklist of artworks, follow. But the MCA's claim that this is a definitive show of Chicago art is not convincing. Works by artists attaining prominence only in the last 30 years dominate the show, while artists working in the decade after World War II are given less attention. Also, a few artists included have had only minimal affiliation with the city. Definitely not the last word on this important subject, this is nonetheless an important addition to all regional collections and larger collections of American art books.?Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Chicago art is finally emerging from the shadow of New York and casting off its self-fulfilling Second City persona. This well-researched, well-illustrated, well-written, and perceptive volume is the first to examine all aspects of postwar art in Chicago and to analyze the reasons for and consequences of the city's devotion to figurative images, strong artistic individualism, scant critical response, and lackluster institutional support. Chicago is better known for its architecture, particularly the work of Mies van der Rohe and Moholy-Nagy, and its photography, thanks in great part to Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, but with the exception of the ribald Imagists, painters and sculptors have been accorded little respect. The text considers a truly impressive range of visual and performing arts, as well as community art and not-for-profit arts organizations. Concise and illuminating profiles of artists, including Archibald J. Motley Jr., Leon Golub, Vera Klement, Ed Paschke, Phyllis Bramson, Alejandro Romero, and Martin Puryear, to name a very few, enhance the value of this important volume, which has been published in conjunction with the opening of the city's new Museum of Contemporary Art. Donna Seaman

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson; 1st Ed. edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 050023728X
• ISBN-13: 978-0500237281
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,727,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lynne Warren is Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago where she has organized over 25 solo exhibitions of artists ranging from "Robert Heinecken: Photographist" of 1999 and 2004's "Dan Peterman: Plastic Economies." She served as the project director for the "Art in Chicago, 1945-1995" exhibition of 1996, which produced the first comprehensive book of Chicago's unique art history; project director and curator of the H.C. Westermann exhibition and catalogue raisonné projects; and curator for the 2010 exhibition "Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy" and edited the book of the same name. A number of her over 30 exhibition catalogues published by the MCA and such publishers as Harry N. Abrams and Thames and Hudson are collector's items, including "Alternative Spaces: A History in Chicago."

Warren has contributed to "Masterpieces of 20th Century Art," The Art Institute of Chicago (1988); the "Encyclopedia of Chicago," Newberry Library, Chicago and University of Chicago (2004); the Groves Dictionaries "Dictionary of Art" (1995); "Photography After Photography," Siemans AG, Munich, (1999); and is the editor for the three-volume reference book "The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography" published by Taylor and Francis Books, London and New York.

She has also authored essays in exhibition catalogues of Marcos Raya, Vera Klement, Lora Fosberg, Wesley Kimler, Phyllis Bramson, and others.

She published a volume of poetry in 2009 titled "Ballary Marvels" which features the pen-and-ink drawings of Ellen Lanyon, available at Printed Matter in New York, or on-line at the Museum of Contemporary Art bookstore

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I wanted pix of art by hairy who, June 24, 2011

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Beverley R. Enright - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Art in Chicago 1945-1995 (Paperback)

This was a book I remembered from a couple decades ago that was in the public library. after seeing an exhibit of Jim Nutt's art at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago, I wanted a copy of it for paintings I liked from that group. It has Wursum's "Screamin' Jay Hawkins", an icon like cartoon type painting with the phrase "because is in your mind" between two parrots. This is one of my favorites.