Madron Gallery Bulletin: Issue 9

ISSUE 9 // 6.6.2022

Bernece Berkman (1911–1988), Industrial Scene, 1941, 1941, gouache on paper, 23 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches

WHAT’S NEW

America Runs on Duncan

Don your most iconic silk scarf and join us this Sunday (6/12) at 2PM for a talk and demonstration by Jennifer Sprowl, Artistic Director of Duncan Dance Chicago, who will be discussing Isadora Duncan’s legacy and impact on modern dance from the early twentieth century up to today (more details here). We’ll also have extended gallery hours that day, from 12-4PM. If you can’t make it to the event, though, Perpetual Motion, the accompanying exhibit, is still up through June 24th (and if we do say so ourselves, Ann Cooper Albright’s book Modern Gestures makes an excellent pairing to the show). Both of these programs are part of the #YearofChicagoDance and See Chicago Dance’s #ChicagoDanceMonth.

Prints? Charming

We’re so excited to announce the grand opening of our online print shop. To kick things off we've got a small, curated selection of some of our very favorite works, but check back often as the inventory will change. Since this is the first time Madron is offering the chance to purchase artwork directly from our website (seriously, how much easier could buying great art get?), and because we like you all so much, we’re doing a little summer trunk show through the end of August. You’ll want to get in on this quick — the deals on these Marc Hauser, William S. Schwartz, and Raphael Soyer prints from our archives couldn’t get much sweeter.

Raphael Soyer (1889 -1987), Couple in Interior, c.1963, etching, edition 2/25, 10 x 7 ⅓ inches (plate), 19 x 15 inches (matte)

WHAT’S NEXT

Wine, Dine, and Fine Art

Join Madron Gallery this fall for Palette and Palate, a show that raises a toast to art and food in Chicago, as well as the delightful and unexpected pairings thereof (did you know our gallery building used to hold a brewery?) For the first time in over a decade, The Seven Lively Arts — seven large-scale oil paintings by seven different artists (including heavy hitters Ivan Albright, Aaron Bohrod, and William S. Schwartz) commissioned in 1947 for the palette-shaped bar of Riccardo’s Restaurant and Gallery — will be on public display, courtesy of the estate of Seymour H. Persky. The exhibition also includes Windy City-scapes from 1925 to 1950 by the likes of Ruth Van Sickle Ford, Ethel Spears, and Todros Geller. Palette and Palate invites you to take a step back into Chicago’s history, to a time when newspapermen and opera singers rubbed elbows over cheap spaghetti, arguing late into the night about art, philosophy, and the proper ratio of gin to vermouth in a martini. We hope to see you for the opening September 6th — no reservations required, but we’ll be sure to save you a seat.

WHAT’S THAT UP TOP?

Hunter Gatherer

If there’s a work that Madron visitors ask about more than the rest, it’s Industrial Scene, 1941 by Bernece Berkman-Hunter. What many don’t realize right away is how easily her name might’ve been lost to time. For the first part of her life, Berkman-Hunter was a Chicago artist through and through, creating expressive portraits of industrialization and social plight that utilized an unusual and dynamic combination of printmaking technique, cubism, and progressive ideology. At the end of her life, though, Berkman-Hunter was living alone and penniless in a New York City apartment — her landlord, not wanting to clean out the apartment after she died, gave a discount to the next tenant if she was willing to deal with the mess Berkman-Hunter had left behind. That mess morphed into what are now the Bernece Berkman-Hunter papers at the Library of Congress — a recognition of her significant and unique vision and a legacy saved.