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Past Exhibitions

Detail of Chromatic Patterns

Judy Ledgerwood: Chromatic Patterns for the Smart Museum

December 26, 2013–June 21, 2015

Chicago-based artist Judy Ledgerwood creates an immense, site-specific wall painting for the Smart Museum.

Installation view of the exhibition

Interiors and Exteriors: Avant-Garde Itineraries in Postwar France

December 17, 2013 – March 16, 2014

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

Robert Kinmont, 8 Natural Handstands (detail), 1969/2009

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.

Peter Flötner, Mars as a Sign of the Zodiac, c. 1540, Cast gilt bronze plaquette. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Purchase, The Cochrane-Woods Collection, 1977.115.

Wings, Speed, and Cosmic Dominion in Renaissance Italy

September 3 – December 8, 2013

This intimate exhibition examines the Renaissance fascination with wings as symbols of speed and power.

Zachary Cahill: USSA 2012: Wellness Center: Idyllic—affair of the heart

August 23, 2013 – August 3, 2014

In his site-specific banner commissioned for the Smart Museum’s courtyard, Zachary Cahill questions whether art has the power to make us well.

Childe Hassam, On the Lake Front Promenade, Columbian World Exposition, 1893, Oil on canvas. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, The Harold H. Swift Bequest, 1962, 1976.146.

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.

Serge Charchoune, Grossissement, 1927, Oil on canvas.

Other Modernisms: Serge Charchoune (1889-1975)

May 7 – August 25, 2013

The achievement of Franco-Russian painter Serge Charchoune (1889–1975) is among the least widely known or understood in twentieth-century European art.

Slogans for Communal Harmony

The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989

February 14 – June 9, 2013

Since 1989, the influential Delhi-based Sahmat has offered a platform for artists, writers, poets, musicians, actors, and activists to create and present works of art that promote artistic freedom and celebrate secular, egalitarian values.

Gigi Scaria, City Unclaimed, 2013

Gigi Scaria: City Unclaimed

January 19 – December 8, 2013

Indian artist Gigi Scaria’s site-specific installation combines a large photo-based mural of an imaginary cityscape with a working fountain.

Indian, Orissa, Krishna and Brahma, Late 19th/early 20th century

Divine and Princely Realms: Indian Art from the Permanent Collection

December 18, 2012 – April 28, 2013

Traditional art from the Indian sub-continent reveals the region’s layers of history and unique racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity.