Summer Suite 2026

 

Bodo Stolzenberger

Bodo’s annual group show keeps getting better and better,

as do Bodo’s own gritty drawings. 

Things are getting under control.

Decades of daily practice is a good thing.

Paula Herrera

Paula is famous for cats and mythical figures,

but these realistic portraits surprised me,

so strong and sensitive

Especially this one of Nono,

with poem attached.

A soulful portrait of an unusual woman, who,

like Paula, comes from another part  of the world.

I do like cats….. but… can there be too many?

Mary Klug

Mary Klug

I totally agree that robins are a serious problem when nesting in your hair.

A fine update on Edvard  Munch

who had far less reason to be screaming

(Mary showed the same piece last year, but that’s OK. I like it.)

Cindy Hilliard 

Cindy Hilliard, watercolor

A member new to Chicago.

Do we need someone to teach watercolor? 

She’s good,

and she draws a fine figure, too.

Mary Palmer, Chicago Transit Rider

Looks like this guy never gets off the train

Mark Huddle, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

Was it really a steel cage match?

Mark Huddle

Urban rhythms.

Joan Stachnik , Herrerasaurus

(presumably, no relation to Paula)

drawing some of the world’s oldest models 

 at the Field Museum

Henning Ryden (1869 - 1939)

 

A very delicate low relief dated 1900.

Recalling the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)

Donated to the coach house by Stuart Fullerton.

painter, engraver, and sculptor, Henning Ryden was born in Blekinge, Sweden. He studied in Stockholm and Copenhagen before immigrating to America in 1891. He continued studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, in Paris, London, and Berlin. 

 He settled in Chicago where he worked in sculpture and painted landscapes and exhibited work in the Swedish-American art exhibitions and at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco.

Good Medal Show 2026

Val Yachik, After the Storm

Not a painting so.much as an eternal moment of experience 

with ontological implication.

Ker-plunk 

(Tree falling in forest)

My pick for the Gold Medal.

Misha Livshultz

Another very strong presence that seems to last forever.

Misha is one of those Jews who could have stayed in Egypt to make sculpture.

Erol  Jacobson

Don’t know why it rains wherever Erol goes.

But it was raining on Caillbotte as well.

Kuhn Hong

So many supposedly irrelevant details strenuously compete for attention.

But that’s how a sunny day on a big city street can feel.

 

Stuart Fullerton

Heroine of a melodramatic mystery

Stephanie Weidner

Another case of the gallery being more interesting than what’s on the wall.

The rear door is beckoning.

Andrew Conklin

The weirder Andy gets, the more I like him

Muriel Christensen

Uncomfortably squeezed between the more and less expressionistic.

It ended up winning the Gold Medal.

Don Di Sante

A sculptural head 

Might

that have done better as an enamel 

to perk up the surface

Roger Akers

Instantly recognizable 

club personality 

though usually seen fully clothed

Tom Zamiar

Instantly recognizable as Tom’s world

G

Gregory Mejia,  Original Sin

If it were album cover art, I’d buy the record.

(When I was 18)

Julie Sulzen, “No Parking Anytime”

Did not impress me enough to shoot it, but it impressed others enough to  win  the People’s Choice Award as well as an Honorable Mention.

The yellow fence does project itself well across a large room.

Faculty Show 2026

 

Debra Balchen

Yikes!

The subtle smile of Quattrocento Italy.

Wasn’t expecting to find it at the PNC.

  

Michael Van ZEYL

Love the ambitious vision.

, but kinda painful to look at.

The pieces need to be further apart and might work better in mosaic than paint.

Helen Oh

Palette and Chisel as a royal academy

Larry Paulsen

More like how people really are.

Portraiture of the 19th instead of 18th century.

Helen Oh

Flowers with inappropriate emotions.

Stuart Fullerton

Could have been in that AIC show three years about Van Gogh and friends painting in the suburbs of Paris. 

Grim realty of suburban sprawl.

Don Yang

Tony Bedolla

-Plein Air Painters of Chicago : Holiday Exhibit 2025

 

Iris Gan

Top notch illustration 

Almost good painting.

Iris Gan

Kelly Dawson. Wraiths of Prairie Ave

Feels so European 

Kirstin Alischoewski

As much about paint as about place

Kirstin Alischoewski

Anna Cherkashina 

Wish I’d included her in my Chicago cityscape show

Shannon Burch,  Hands off Chicago

Right On !!!

Jessica Mays,  Oak park Library

Not exactly an architectural rendering, but I like it

Jessica Mays,  Alley between sushi and ramen 

Exhibition: The Journey Home

i

Kei Constantinov

Like the Marco Polo marionette on the left.

As fascinating as its subject.

All of her antiquated paintings appear to be catalogs of symbols with no connection to color, design, or form. But her MFA guarantees that she is not naive about such things.

These pieces are postmodern, so we should show some respect for the institutions that rule contemporary art.

Kei Constantinov

Kei Constantinov

Isaac Galvan

Among his many small portraits, this one clicked for me.

Simon Cygielski

Dolls that reflect Polish ethnicity as well as architectural training.

Simon Cygielski

Apparently the artist has become comfortable with discomfort; 

habituated to feeling homeless.

A nice inner contradiction.