The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art is honored to announce that the Association of Art Museum Curators has recognized the Museum’s consulting curator Jessica Moss with a 2017 Award for Excellence for the catalogue for the Smart’s 2016 exhibition Monster Roster.

The competitive prize is “dedicated to recognizing groundbreaking new scholarship in the field.” The award-winning publication provides the definitive introduction to the Monster Roster—a group of artists spearheaded by Leon Golub who established the first unique Chicago style—and adds a vital chapter to the history of 20th century American art through essays, a timeline, artist biographies, primary source texts, and over 100 full-color plates.

“It is exciting to have our peers recognize this beautiful catalogue about such a dark, difficult, and overlooked body of work,” said Alison Gass, the recently appointed Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum. “It is the product of a deep collaboration between curators, scholars, and artists and shows the very best of what is possible at the Smart Museum.”

Jessica Moss edited the catalogue with exhibition co-curators John Corbett, Jim Dempsey, and Richard A. Born with assistance provided by Gail Gomez. It features essays and other contributions from Dennis Adrian, Jon Bird, Thomas Dyja, Mark Pascale, and Arlene Shechet as well as reprints of key texts by Jean Dubuffet and Franz Schulze. The publication was designed by Glue + Paper Workshop.

Monster Roster is available for purchase in the Smart Museum’s shop and is distributed through the University of Chicago Press.