The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is currently housing an extensive exhibit featuring the artwork of the Chicago Imagists, a collection that inspired the curatorial staff to write a series of historical essays on the art. Complied and published in a volume, the essays aim to revisit the work of the American artists and broaden the appreciation of the collection.
The collection is made up of six main essays, each examining a different aspect of the Chicago Imagist movement. The authors of the essays, who are either part of the curatorial staff or guest authors, bring fresh angles to the artAccompanying these essays is an in-depth chronology of the Chicago Imagist movement as well as biographies of major artists involved in the movement.
The first essay is "Chicago Imagism: The Derivation of a Term," by Lynne Warren. A curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. This essay starts the publication with a solid foundation, defining and establishing the origins of the term "Chicago Imagists." She explains that Franz Schulze, a Chicago art historian, coined the term in the 1970s to describe the group of artists who gained notoriety following World War II. Schulze was the first critic to write significantly about the artistic movement happening in Hyde Park. Since then, it refers to the stylistic choices that are best demonstrated in Chicago artists of the 1960s.
The current MMoCA director, Stephen Fleischman, follows Warren's essay with a piece that recognizes the people who brought notoriety to the work of Chicago Imagists, such as Ruth and Leonard Horwich, a couple in Chicago who housed many works of the Chicago impressionists and helped make their work well-known.
Richard Axsom, the curator of collections, writes about the relationship between the Chicago Imagists movement and the coastal Pop Art movement that took place a couple of decades earlier.
Another MMoCA curator, Jane Simon, examines how the social and political events of the ‘60s influenced the art. Pointing to works by Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, and Roger Brown, she draws attention to the common theme of on the sexual revolution, drug experimentation, and social movements. Paschke's work, specifically, is prominent in the exhibition, including his vivid and colorful piece, "Prothesian."
Scholar Cecilia Whiting discusses feminist influences on the Chicago Imagist movement, focusing on Christina Ramberg and Gladys Nilsson, whose work depicts the change in women's attitudes during the ‘60s. Ramberg's "Tight Hipped" comments on the cultural expectations concerning women's bodies.
The final essay, a second piece by Warren, explores the sexual humor laced in the majority of the artwork, explicitly mentioning Ray Yoshida, Jim Nutt and Suellen Rocca.
This volume is engaging, humorous and enlightening. It sheds light on work often overlooked in art history, serving as the perfect companion for anyone who has visited the Imagists exhibit at MMoCA or a great substitute for those who are unable to experience the exhibit.