In honor of its 150th anniversary, the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) has teamed up with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) for a new exhibition. The show is called “Homegrown: The School of the Art Institute in the Permanent Collection," and it highlights the many influential American artists who received instruction at the school and later became part of the permanent collection of what has been called “the world’s best museum.
Gladys Nilsson. Big School Picture; Little Paper Mural, 1992. The Art Institute of Chicago. Samuel T. Avery Endowment.
“It is very much a story about early American art,” said SAIC professor Lisa Wainwright. “I think you’re gonna see some of the classic traditions that one could find in New York, for instance. But Chicago is incredibly pluralistic in its artistic expression and that’s what distinguishes us from the East Coast, I would argue—and maybe the West Coast. So this show reflects that pluralism. There’s figurative work, there’s abstract work, there’s landscape—that’s the Chicago story. We’re not committed to any one particular form of expression.”
Some of that “pluralism” involves artists that include Margaret Burroughs, co-founder of the DuSable Museum, and the Imagist master Ed Paschke.
Most of the works are on paper, not canvas. There are works by Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists of the 1930s; pop artist Claus Oldenberg is represented by an unusual drawing; and artist LeRoy Neiman’s personal sketchbook offers a snapshot of Oak Street beach in the 1950s.
Ivan Albright. Self-Portrait (No.13), 1982. The Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mrs. Ivan Albright. © The Art Institute of Chicago.
“The works on paper that you see here have been chosen because they represent the artist well graphically,” said AIC curator Mark Pascale. “And the school has been focused on the initial process that artists us—and that’s drawing—because drawing is very close to thinking, and the school thinks."
Mark Pascale is both a curator at AIC and a teacher at the SAIC. Along with drawings, he also selected paintings and prints for the exhibition.
“There are a really nice cross-section of things,” Pascale said. “The Ivan Albright self-portraits at the end or in the first gallery are works he made at the end of his life, and I think you can see, on the very last one on the bottom row to the right, he looks quite dead at that point—he’s barely alive. So, in his case, yes, it’s sort of a summation of a career through the eyes of 20 self-portraits, or through the example of 20 self-portraits."
Written by Marc Vitali | Sean Keenehan |
“It is very much a story about early American art,” said SAIC professor Lisa Wainwright. “I think you’re gonna see some of the classic traditions that one could find in New York, for instance. But Chicago is incredibly pluralistic in its artistic expression and that’s what distinguishes us from the East Coast, I would argue—and maybe the West Coast. So this show reflects that pluralism. There’s figurative work, there’s abstract work, there’s landscape—that’s the Chicago story. We’re not committed to any one particular form of expression.”
Some of that “pluralism” involves artists that include Margaret Burroughs, co-founder of the DuSable Museum, and the Imagist master Ed Paschke.
Most of the works are on paper, not canvas. There are works by Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists of the 1930s; pop artist Claus Oldenberg is represented by an unusual drawing; and artist LeRoy Neiman’s personal sketchbook offers a snapshot of Oak Street beach in the 1950s.
“The works on paper that you see here have been chosen because they represent the artist well graphically,” said AIC curator Mark Pascale. “And the school has been focused on the initial process that artists us—and that’s drawing—because drawing is very close to thinking, and the school thinks."
Mark Pascale is both a curator at AIC and a teacher at the SAIC. Along with drawings, he also selected paintings and prints for the exhibition.
“There are a really nice cross-section of things,” Pascale said. “The Ivan Albright self-portraits at the end or in the first gallery are works he made at the end of his life, and I think you can see, on the very last one on the bottom row to the right, he looks quite dead at that point—he’s barely alive. So, in his case, yes, it’s sort of a summation of a career through the eyes of 20 self-portraits, or through the example of 20 self-portraits."
Written by Marc Vitali | Sean Keenehan |
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