Serial Drawings: Robert Barnes, Barbara Rossi, Robert Lucy

July 1–August 31, 2014

Robert M. Barnes, Canto I, From the series of eight drawings based on Ezra Pound’s Cantos, 1961, Pastel on laid paper. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of Allan Frumkin, 1996.58a. © Robert Barnes.

This collection-based exhibition considers three sets of drawings by three generations of artists associated with Chicago.

Robert Barnes, Barbara Rossi, and Robert Lucy all work in a figurative mode, though each assumes a different and highly personal approach to the human form. They all have explored drawing’s expressive or narrative potential through unified cycles of drawings, ranging from four to eleven works.

The exhibition reunites ten drawings by Barnes that are based on Ezra Pound’s Cantos (1961). Also featured are Rossi’s series Very Rich Hims and Hers (1970) and Lucy’s suite Sea Fashions(2002–03).