Celebrating South Side Artists Of The 1960s and 70s

Nicole Bond Leads a Smart Museum Tour
Smart Museum docent Nicole Bond leads a tour group from Taft High School. The tour became interactive as some students shared their research on paintings and photographs from the museum. Jason Pallas/Smart Museum
Nicole Bond Leads a Smart Museum Tour
Smart Museum docent Nicole Bond leads a tour group from Taft High School. The tour became interactive as some students shared their research on paintings and photographs from the museum. Jason Pallas/Smart Museum

Celebrating South Side Artists Of The 1960s and 70s

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

Chicago is a city rich in art history, but some of its most prominent artists and movements have fallen through the cracks over the years.

In the 1960s and 70s, for example, the Black Arts Movement, AfriCOBRA, the Hairy Who collective, and many other artistic movements flourished on the city’s South Side. These groups of artists helped shed light on a time of cultural and economic shifts— a time much like to today.

So maybe it’s no accident that the first part of  title of a new exhibition at the Smart Museum in Hyde Park is title The Time is Now!  It takes a deep dive into the art and artists who were living those times of turmoil and the movements that gave birth to those experiences.

The show runs through December 30th at the Smart Museum of art. Its curator Rebecca Zorach, who’s also the Mary Jane Crowe Professor in Art and Art History at Northwestern University, joins the Morning Shift to talk more about what to expect from the exhibit.

GUEST: Rebecca Zorach, guest curator for Smart Museum

LEARN MORE: ‘Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side’ sheds light on overlooked art, design (Chicago Sun-Times 9/14/18)

South Side Artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s Get Spotlight in 2 Exhibitions (WTTW 10/1/18)

Smart Museum of Art press release

Exhibition catalog

This segment was adapted for the web by Char Daston.