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Lot Essay
Mid-1960s Chicago produced a wildly colorful, irreverent and decidedly not mainstream group of youthful artists associated with the Art Institute of Chicago. Collectively known as the Chicago Imagists, at various times and in various configurations they were also known as the Monster Roster, the Non-Plussed Some, False Image, Marriage Chicago Style, Chicago Antigua and probably most famously as the Hairy Who (the moniker a good-natured joke at the expense of Chicago’s WFMT radio art critic Harry Bouras). The Imagists were a diverse group of young art students, sharing enthusiasms about art rather formal principles and agendas. One of their mentors was artist Ray Yoshida, an influential teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yoshida encouraged his students to find inspiration in both western and non-western art forms, and, perhaps more significantly for the Imagists, to locate source material beyond the fine arts entirely, to look to popular magazines, comic books, and flea market “trash treasures,” in his words. Another key figure was curator, artist, and exhibition director Don Baum, who ran the exhibitions program at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center. Hyde Park shows were instrumental in getting the Imagists work before the public between 1966 and 1971, where they had several exhibitions. These early shows included artists Roger Brown, Sarah Canright, James Falconer, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, and Karl Wirsum.
Although often grouped with the concurrent and higher-profile Pop Art movement, each individual Imagist had his or her own idiosyncratic, distinctive, style that, depending on the artist, might blend Expressionist figuration; 60s-era Counterculture comics; tribal art; visual and textual jokes and puns; visionary outsider art; or Surrealism. At a time when abstract painting was still a powerful force and the stripped down and spare art approach called Minimalism was beginning to gather strength, the Chicago Imagists created exuberant, frequently outrageous, often sharp-edged and darkly ironic artworks, characterized by garish colors, and sometimes joyful, occasionally grotesque figurative images. Their work mirrored, amplified, reflected and refracted the zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s, the political and cultural fears and foibles, styles and eccentricities unique to those tumultuous, expressive, autarchic decades. In keeping with their boundary-crossing ebullience and vigor, the Imagists produced work across an encyclopedic range of media, including works on canvas; printmaking; watercolor; collage; sculptures; and an assortment of ephemeral materials, including comic books and decals.
In addition to Don Baum and Ray Yoshida, another great champion of the Chicago Imagists was gallery owner Phyllis Kind. Opening a gallery there in 1967, she initially showed old master prints. But she soon became intrigued by the group of young artists showing under the name the Hairy Who, artists whose approaches stood out from the dominant trends of the New York Art world of the time. By 1970 Kind had built up a stable of artists in Chicago, several of whom were artists affiliated with the Chicago Imagists. Complementary with her interest in the Imagists, Kind developed a fascination with Outsider Art and she became one of the first to promote such work side-by-side with contemporary high art.
Although often grouped with the concurrent and higher-profile Pop Art movement, each individual Imagist had his or her own idiosyncratic, distinctive, style that, depending on the artist, might blend Expressionist figuration; 60s-era Counterculture comics; tribal art; visual and textual jokes and puns; visionary outsider art; or Surrealism. At a time when abstract painting was still a powerful force and the stripped down and spare art approach called Minimalism was beginning to gather strength, the Chicago Imagists created exuberant, frequently outrageous, often sharp-edged and darkly ironic artworks, characterized by garish colors, and sometimes joyful, occasionally grotesque figurative images. Their work mirrored, amplified, reflected and refracted the zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s, the political and cultural fears and foibles, styles and eccentricities unique to those tumultuous, expressive, autarchic decades. In keeping with their boundary-crossing ebullience and vigor, the Imagists produced work across an encyclopedic range of media, including works on canvas; printmaking; watercolor; collage; sculptures; and an assortment of ephemeral materials, including comic books and decals.
In addition to Don Baum and Ray Yoshida, another great champion of the Chicago Imagists was gallery owner Phyllis Kind. Opening a gallery there in 1967, she initially showed old master prints. But she soon became intrigued by the group of young artists showing under the name the Hairy Who, artists whose approaches stood out from the dominant trends of the New York Art world of the time. By 1970 Kind had built up a stable of artists in Chicago, several of whom were artists affiliated with the Chicago Imagists. Complementary with her interest in the Imagists, Kind developed a fascination with Outsider Art and she became one of the first to promote such work side-by-side with contemporary high art.