Upcoming - Exhibitions - Smart Museum of Art

The Land Beneath Our Feet: American Art at the Smart Museum

June 27 – August 25, 2013

Tracing a chronological arc of almost a century, this exhibition showcases both familiar and lesser-known works from the Smart Museum’s collection of American art. It presents approximately eighty works—paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs—by American artists, while exploring national context and changes in art between 1850 and 1940.... more »

Wings, Speed, and Cosmic Dominion in Renaissance Italy

September 3 – December 8, 2013

Wings are prevalent in a wide range of Renaissance representations, from figures (angels, winged cherubs, and mythological gods) to animals (eagles, griffins, and winged horses). The multiple iconographies of wings during this period drew on allegorical, cosmological, and religious symbols inherited from both Christian and ancient Near Eastern mythologies. ... more »

State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970

October 3, 2013 – January 12, 2014

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Imagists exhibited in Chicago and abstract painting held sway in New York, a distinct strain of avant-garde and conceptual art emerged in California.... more »

Interiors and Exteriors: Avant-Garde Itineraries in Postwar France

December 17, 2013 – March 16, 2014

This exhibition will trace the relationship between the emerging generation of avant-garde movements in 1950s France and the surrealist movement, re-established in Paris after the war.... more »

Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture

February 13 – June 15, 2014

During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Chinese passion for opera and theater permeated the visual and material world of everyday life. Opera was at the heart of Chinese social life, from the village to the court, and the spectacle of theater was found not only on the stage—in costumes, props, and... more »

Imaging/Imagining: The Body in Art

March 25 – June 15, 2014

For centuries, depicting the body has been essential to practitioners of art as well as medicine. Drawing the human form is a fundamental component of art pedagogy, while medical doctors have long relied on anatomical illustrations to understand what goes on inside the body. Yet the advent of advanced... more »

Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago

September 17, 2015 – January 17, 2016

The group postwar artists nicknamed the Monster Roster established the first unique Chicago style. Spearheaded by Leon Golub, the group created deeply psychological works that drew on classical mythology, ancient art, and a shared interest in what one critic has called “the figure under stress.” Indeed, the fiercely independent Monster... more »

Smart Museum of Art University of Chicago

Exhibitions

Collection Galleries

Exhibitions: Upcoming