Gladys Nilsson at The Menil Drawing Institute

Gladys Nilsson’s site-specific work titled Drawing presents fantastical, hybrid beings all surrounding one monumental figure engaged in the act of drawing. A complex, garland-like arrangement of black-and-white characters soars overhead, entangled with one another, while the bystanders below, set apart by gentle color-toning, observe the scene.

The bustling composition is marked by deft and fluid lines using a candy-colored palette of crayon, graphite, and acrylic paint and marker pens. Nilsson’s whimsical creation embodies her distinctive sense of humor and levity while taking viewers on a journey through the peculiar beauty of the human experience.

“Everything I’m interested in looking at usually involves the figure in one way or another. I’m always collecting interactions between folks that occur in daily life, and these filter into my work. The title of the piece is simply ‘Drawing.’ The idea is that the main figure is contained in this space, creating these figures, which take a life of their own.” —Gladys Nilsson

Born in Chicago in 1940, Gladys Nilsson studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1966, Nilsson’s work has been the subject of over 50 solo exhibitions, including sixteen at Phyllis Kind Gallery (1970–1979, 1981–1983, 1987, 1991, and 1994, Chicago and New York), and two at The Candy Store (1971 and 1987, Folsom, California). Her work also has been featured in many important museum exhibitions, such as: Human Concern/Personal Torment (1969, Whitney Museum of American Art); Who Chicago? (1981, Camden Art Center, London); Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art (1992, Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Chicago Imagists (2011, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin); and What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present (2014, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence). Nilsson is represented in the collections of major museums around the world, including: the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Morgan Library, New York; the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Nilsson is a recipient of the 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman Award.

Wall Drawing Series: Gladys Nilsson is curated by Edouard Kopp, John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator, Menil Drawing Institute. The Drawing Institute’s Wall Drawing Series began in 2018 as part of the Drawing Institute’s commitment to seeking new approaches to the form and language of drawing. Past participants include Marc Bauer, Mel Bochner, Roni Horn, Marcia Kure, and Jorinde Voigt.

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