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Past Exhibitions : 2009

Aaron Siskind, Chicago, 1949, Gelatin silver print. Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Gift of the Illinois Arts Council, 1976.140.

Aaron Siskind: The Thing Itself

January 13 – May 10, 2009

Aaron Siskind (1903–1991) is best known for his abstract photographs, often of natural forms or architectural features that were manipulated in order to produce unfamiliar images.

Installation view of Your Pal, Cliff with Burning House (1958) in the foreground.

Your Pal, Cliff: Selections from the H. C. Westermann Study Collection

April 2 – September 6, 2009

Horace Clifford (H. C.) Westermann (1922–1981) created a meticulously crafted and highly personal body of work that defies easy categorization.

Giovanni Castrucci (or Castrucci Workshop), Wooded Landscape with Crenellated Wall, circa 1600–07, Commessi di pietre dure (so-called Florentine Mosaic) of Bohemian semi-precious hard stones and petrified wood mounted on slate. Smart Museum of Art, Univ

The Scholar’s Studio: Selections from the Edward A. and Inge Maser Collection

May 5 – October 18, 2009

An exhibition of works from the collection of Edward A. Maser, the first director of the Smart Museum and a scholar of the baroque. 

Installation view

Malleable Likeness and the Photographic Portrait

May 19 – August 30, 2009

This exhibition considers the malleable role of likeness in portrait photography from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. 

Installation view

Joseph Yoakum: Line and Landscape

September 8, 2009 – May 2, 2010

During the last decade of his life, self-taught artist and South Side resident Joseph Yoakum (1890–1972) began drawing almost full time. He produced several thousand works in this short period, mostly of highly stylized landscapes.

Installation view of Heartland

Heartland

October 1, 2009 – January 17, 2010

Organized by the Smart Museum of Art and the Van Abbemuseum, this exhibition offers an idiosyncratic look at the innovative forms of artistic creation taking place in the American Heartland.

Sites to Behold: Travels in Eighteenth-Century Rome

November 3, 2009 – April 11, 2010

This exhibition presents etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, gouache drawings by Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, and other works depicting Rome and nearby Tivoli