Jim nutt and gladys nilsson talk about the candy store gallery
Gladys M. Nilsson (born May 6, 1940) is an American artist, one of the original Hairy Who Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art. Her paintings "set forth a surreal mixture of fantasy and domesticity in a continuous parade of chaotic images." She is married to fellow-artist and Hairy Who member Jim Nutt.
Terrence coffman gladys nilsson jeffrey ripple at tory folliard gallery
Biography
Gladys Nilsson was born to Swedish immigrant parents. Her father was a factory worker for Sunbeam and her mother a waitress. She grew up on the north side of Chicago and attended Lake View High School, while also attending extracurricular drawing classes. Against her parents' blue collar sensibilities, she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she met her future husband, fellow student Jim Nutt. Nilsson and Nutt married in July 1961, and their son, Claude, was born in 1962. Although Nilsson originally painted with oil paints, she switched to watercolors when pregnant in order to avoid the hazards of turpentine. She initially found it difficult to strike a balance between motherhood and her career in painting, though she states that she never considered giving up painting.
In 1963, Nilsson and Nutt were introduced to School of the Art Institute of Chicago art history professor Whitney Halstead, who became a teacher, mentor, and friend. He introduced them in turn to Don Baum, exhibition director at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. In 1964 Nilsson and Nutt became youth instructors at the Hyde Park Art Center.
Artistic Style
Gladys Nilsson's influences were far ranging and included German Expressionism, 15th Century Italian painting, Egyptian tomb murals, Cubism, and, more specifically, Whitney Halstead, Kathleen Blackshear, James Ensor, George Grosz, Paul Klee, Georges Seurat, John Marin, and Charles Burchfield. The result was a style that bordered on surrealism and pop, fantasy and cartoon. She took the human figure as her main subject, magnifying, multiplying, and distorting these figures as she saw fit. Though her work is technically very accomplished, she is not as well known as some of her Hairy Who colleagues, because, art historically speaking, paper was seen as a lesser medium than, say, canvas. Also, art world bias has always been in favor of male rather than female artists. Both of these facts angered Gladys, who had a true love for paper and believed that art could not and should not be classified as either masculine or feminine.
The Hairy Who Years
In 1964, Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson began to teach children's classes at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. They and James Falconer approached the center's exhibitions director, Don Baum, with the idea of a group show consisting of the three of them and Art Green and Suellen Rocca. Baum agreed, and also suggested they include Karl Wirsum. The name of the group show, "Hairy Who?", became the name of the group. It was coined by Karl Wirsum as a reference to WFMT art critic Harry Bouras. There were exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. The 1968 exhibition traveled to the San Francisco Art Institute, and the last show, in 1969, traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
At this time, Nilsson's figures appeared rumpled, fat, freckled, and often had elephantine noses. Though her watercolors were technically accomplished, the subject matter border on absurdist, with figures engaging in wild, erotic behavior in a controlled but burlesque fashion. While she predominantly worked with paper and watercolor, she did also dabble in painting on plexi glass, briefly, in 1967; these paintings are reminiscent of the work of Ubu Roi for their unbelievable juxtapositions and incongruities of our world in a slightly caricaturist style. As with most members of the Hairy Who, she used crowded imagery, there was not a corner of negative space to be found. A creeping sense of horror vacui filled these works.
Later career
In 1969, the influential Chicago gallery owner Phyllis Kind agreed to represent Nilsson and Jim Nutt. In that same year Nilsson and Nutt moved to Sacramento, California, where he was an assistant professor of art at Sacramento State College. In 1973, Nilsson was the first Hairy Who member to have a solo show, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Two of her paintings were stolen from the show. In 1974 Nilsson and her family returned to Chicago. They have lived in Wilmette since 1976.
Her overall style has not shown significant development since the Hairy Who years. From the 1960s through to today, she continues to crowd her paintings with wild allegories of human debauchery that remain refined and elegant despite the wackiness of the figures. Loopy people are often woven into heterosexual pairings and though their bodies may appear to react to stimulation, it seems just as possible that the protruding genitalia and bulging breasts are more a result of the forces within the structure of the composition. There are also strong themes of human existence that range from childhood to motherhood, coming of age to female fantasies of male adoration.
Though her focus has always been watercolor on paper, Nilsson has also worked with collage, increasingly so in 2014. She admits that at a young age she loved playing with cut-out paper dolls. Sticking to her themes, she cuts out imagery from fashion magazines that relates to female ideals of beauty and makes them seemingly grotesque.
Gladys Nilsson, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York, February–March
1979–1980
Gladys Nilsson: Survey of Works on Paper, 1967–1979, Fine Arts Gallery, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, September 17–October 17, 1979; Art Gallery, Corpus Christi State University, Texas, January 8–31, 1980; Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wisconsin, February 17–March 23, 1980
Hairy Who, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, April 15–May 17
The Spirit of the Comics, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, October 1–November 9
1969–1970
Human Concern/Personal Torment: The Grotesque in American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 14–November 30, 1969; Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, January 20–March 1, 1970
1970
Surplus Slop from the Windy City, San Francisco Art Institute, April 16–May 16
Wake Up Yer Scalp with Chicago, Richard Feigen Gallery, New York, November
1971
Boxed Top Art, Art Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, April 2–30
Chicago Imagist Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, May 13–June 25
1973–1974
XII Bienal de São Paulo, October 5–November 20, 1973; Bogotá, Columbia, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá, January 15–February 21, 1974; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, March 25–April 29, 1974; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, May 27–July 1, 1974; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, July 29–September 9, 1974
1976
Contemporary Images in Watercolor, Akron Art Institute, Ohio, March 14–April 25; Indianapolis Museum of Art, June 29–August 8; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York, October 1–November 14
Old and New Works by Artists from the Phyllis Kind Gallery, Foster Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, April 19–May 5
1977
Contemporary Figurative Painting in the Midwest, Madison Art Center, Wisconsin, February 26–April 10
1978
Eleven Chicago Painters, Art Gallery, Florida State University, Tallahassee, February 12–March 3
Contemporary Chicago Painters, Art Gallery, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, April 2–March 3
Chicago Collects Chicago, Gallery 200, Visual Arts Building, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, April 3–30
1979
Chicago Currents: The Koffler Foundation Collection, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, June 8–August 13
American Watercolorists, Mitchell Museum, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mount Vernon, Illinois, November 3–December 31
Contemporary Drawings and Watercolors, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York, January 19–March 2
Some Recent Art from Chicago, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 2–March 9
The Candy Store, De Saisset Art Museum, University of Santa Clara, California, April 11–June 15
Renderings of the Modern Woman: Figurative Images of Women by Contemporary Artists, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, Connecticut, October 8–November 13
Six Artists from Chicago, The Mayor Gallery, London, November 20–December 20
1980–1981
Who Chicago? An Exhibition of Chicago Imagists, Camden Arts Centre, London, December 10, 1980 – January 25, 1981; Ceolfrith Gallery, Sunderland Arts Centre, England, February 16–March 14, 1981; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, March 21–April 30, 1981; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, May–June, 1981; Ulster Museum, Belfast, July–August, 1981
1981
A Woman's Place, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, April 12–May 31
Alternative Realities in Contemporary Painting, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, April 20–May 8
1982–1983
Selected Women Painters, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, New York, December 1, 1982 – February 18, 1983
Chicago Imagism: 1965–1985, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, May 16–August 16
Hairy Who? Ha!, Art Institute of Chicago, October 7–November 3
2009
Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Art Institute of Chicago, March 24–September 13
2010
Chicago! Chicago!, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, November 5–December 31
2010–2011
Touch & Go: Ray Yoshida and His Spheres of Influence, Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, November 13, 2010 – February 12, 2011
2011
The Paper Show, Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, March 4–April 17
2011–2012
Chicago Imagists at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin, September 11, 2011 – January 15, 2012
2012
Drawings, Russell Bowman Gallery, Chicago, February 3–April 21
Someone Else's Dream, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, January 29–May 6
2013
Gladys Nilsson and Julia Benjamin, National Exemplar Gallery, New York, September 9–October 20
2013–2014
Hidden Treasures Unveiled: Watercolors, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, September 28, 2013 – January 12, 2014
2014
Head, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, January 31–March 8
2014–2015
What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, September 19, 2014 – January 4, 2015
2016
125 from the Permanent Collection, Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia, January 22–August 31
Chicago and Vicinity, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, March 5–April 23
Shout for Tomorrow, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, May 5–June 17
2017
Investigating Identity: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Art, Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia, February 3–April 9
