Private Eye: The Imagist Impulse in Chicago Art

by John Corbett (Contributor), Jim Dempsey (Contributor), Dennis Adrian (Contributor)

Brash, brilliant and funny, the Chicago Imagists―from the Hairy Who and Nonplussed Some to False Image and Marriage Chicago Style―receive a full appraisal in this electrifying volume This amply illustrated catalog surveys the work of the group of artists known as the Chicago Imagists, who exhibited together in the late 1960s, and whose influence continues to spread 50 years later. Drawing from a collection of rarely seen works, the book presents work from the 17 artists who comprise the original Imagist exhibition groups―the Hairy Who, Nonplussed Some, False Image and Marriage Chicago Style―as well as a number of independent Chicago artists. These artists and their historic work, which is brash, brilliant and often humorous, have seen increased attention over the last decade. Scholars, collectors and younger artists have been magnetized by the paintings of Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Roger Brown, Gladys Nilsson and Karl Wirsum, but there are few large-scale, high-quality books documenting their work.

In addition to a reprint of an important and little-known piece by Dennis Adrian, the book features original essays that provide a big-picture view of the vibrant Chicago art ecosystem and explore the relationship between Imagism and abstraction and between historical Imagist art and its offspring. Also included are an interview with the collectors, biographical “snapshots” of seven key artists and a timeline plotting major works in the collection against important historical events in the art world. With this comprehensive range of material, Private The Imagist Impulse in Chicago Art adds substantively to the topic’s scholarship.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published July 6, 2021

About the author

John Corbett is a writer, curator, and producer based in Chicago. He is co-owner of Corbett vs. Dempsey, an art gallery. Corbett is the author of several books, including Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein (Duke U. Press, 1994), Microgroove: Forays into Other Music (Duke, 2015), A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium (Duke, 2017), and Pick Up the Pieces: Excursions in Seventies Music (University of Chicago, 2019). As an essayist and reviewer, Corbett has written for numerous academic and commercial publications, including DownBeat, The Wire, The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, NKA, Bomb, LitHub, and Lapham’s Quarterly. Corbett has edited or co-edited many books, including several on the musicians Sun Ra and Peter Brötzmann, as well as the 125 books and catalogs that his gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey, has produced, and he has contributed to major museum monographs on artists including Jim Lutes, Charline Von Heyl, Christopher Wool, Albert Oehlen, and Sadie Benning, and essays on artists Rachel Harrison for the Art Institute of Chicago and Bob Thompson for the Museum of Modern Art, NY. Corbett’s work as a music producer includes his label, the Unheard Music Series, which existed from 1999-2006, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, an ongoing label issuing CDs of new and historical jazz, experimental music and improvised music. In 2002, Corbett was invited to be guest artistic director of JazzFest Berlin, and he co-produced the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music as well as a weekly series of concerts at the club of the same name. He has organized many musical events and festivals, most recently a series at the Art Institute of Chicago and stand-alone events at the Guggenheim Museum of Art, NYC, and the Menil Collection, Houston. As a curator, Corbett has been involved in many exhibitions at museums including the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago, 2016), the Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY (3-D Doings: The Imagist Object in Chicago Art, 1964-1980), Sullivan Galleries, the School of the Art Institute, Chicago (Touch and Go: Ray Yoshida and his Spheres of Influence, 2010), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn, and Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 2009). Corbett taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1988 to 2014.