
Carroll Dunham
Drawings, 1974-2024
Thea Liberty Nichols(Editor)
Art Institute of Chicago (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 12. January 2027
Book
Hardback
168 pages
978-0-300-28649-6 (ISBN)
Description
Fifty years of American artist Carroll Dunham's distinctive, energetic drawings
For five decades, Carroll Dunham (b. 1949) has created paintings, prints, and sometimes sculptures, but drawing has always been the foundation of his practice. He has archived thousands of drawings as part of his daily routine, a selection of which are presented here and many of which have never been published before.
As a young artist in the 1980s, Dunham asserted himself as a painter and worked abstractly at a time when Expressionism was ascendent. In subsequent decades his biomorphic abstractions gave way to outright figuration, with the artist creating hypersexualized, cartoon-like, violent, and sometimes grotesque characters that have been linked to underground comix, West Coast Funk Art, or Midwestern Chicago Imagism. His current work features green and purple people in bucolic landscapes engaged in battle or bacchanal. Other works consider the role of the artist, artist's studio, and art object, deeply influenced by philosophy, psychology, and an examination of gender and sexuality. Featuring about 115 works from the 1970s to today, this volume illuminates the depth of Dunham's drawing practice.
Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibition Schedule:
Art Institute of Chicago
(January 31-June 1, 2026)
For five decades, Carroll Dunham (b. 1949) has created paintings, prints, and sometimes sculptures, but drawing has always been the foundation of his practice. He has archived thousands of drawings as part of his daily routine, a selection of which are presented here and many of which have never been published before.
As a young artist in the 1980s, Dunham asserted himself as a painter and worked abstractly at a time when Expressionism was ascendent. In subsequent decades his biomorphic abstractions gave way to outright figuration, with the artist creating hypersexualized, cartoon-like, violent, and sometimes grotesque characters that have been linked to underground comix, West Coast Funk Art, or Midwestern Chicago Imagism. His current work features green and purple people in bucolic landscapes engaged in battle or bacchanal. Other works consider the role of the artist, artist's studio, and art object, deeply influenced by philosophy, psychology, and an examination of gender and sexuality. Featuring about 115 works from the 1970s to today, this volume illuminates the depth of Dunham's drawing practice.
Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibition Schedule:
Art Institute of Chicago
(January 31-June 1, 2026)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
175 color illus.
Dimensions
Height: 292 mm
Width: 241 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
1157 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-28649-6 (9780300286496)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Thea Liberty Nichols is associate research curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Robert Storr is an artist, critic, and curator. Susan Tallman is a critic and art historian. Makayla May is assistant curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, at the Art Institute of Chicago.