KEN NACK

 

2007

Update

November 2007.

Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago.
October 20, 2007 through August 3, 2008.

The Chicago History Museum stands at the crossroads of America’s past and its future.

If you live in Chicago or visit here and are curious about the city’s past, present, and future,

the Museum should be your first stop.
Location:
1601 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60614
312.642.4600

 

http://www.chicagohs.org/planavisit/exhibitions/big-picture/index

Ken Nack has a piece in Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago.

 

Also in November, Ken Nack at Roy in Santa Barbara.

 

Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago offers a history of painting in the city by showcasing works ranging from the late-19th-century realist, satirical, and folk traditions to mid-20th-century expressionism and abstraction. Works selected for this exhibition include 49 pieces from the Museum’s own collection, and approximately 30 pieces on loan from private collectors.
Part of American Art American City, a city-wide American art initiative sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art, this exhibition draws from the Museum’s rarely displayed collection of historical paintings and explores several styles and subjects.
Themes, Subjects, and Artists
Big Picture explores the traditions of landscape and figurative painting in Chicago, as well as the city’s contributions to American abstraction. Additional works depict social spaces, including a group of large murals formerly installed in some of the city’s historically significant bars and restaurants.
Notable figures from Chicago history are the subject of several works, such as William Herman Schmedtgen’s Caricature of George Ade and Orson Collins Wells from 1912, and a more recent piece depicting Leopold and Loeb, created by Ed Paschke in 2004. Also included are works by lesser-known but skilled artists such as James Needham, and famous Chicagoans including Leon Golub and Phil Hanson.
Visitors will have the rare opportunity to view selected pieces that are displayed to reveal their backs, or versos. The two-sided view of a watercolor, for instance, reveals seldom-seen artists’ notes and sketches.
> View a slideshow of paintings from Big PictureThis exhibition could not have been possible without the generous support from The Guild of the Chicago Historical Society in honor of Miss Racine Tucker, the Terra Foundation for American Art.

 

 

Exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago 2006

Betty Rymer Gallery
280 South Columbus Drive
Chicago, IL 60603
Tel: 312.443-3703
Fax: 312.443-1493
Email: saic_brg@artic.edu
Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Betty Rymer Gallery Exhibition Schedule

April 28 – June 17, 2006

Thomas Kapsalis and Kenneth Nack: Parallels and Tangents
* Discussion with the artists: Friday, April 28, 4:15 p.m.
* Opening reception: Friday, April 28, 5 – 7 p.m.

To stay or to move away: this is arguably the preeminent conundrum for Chicago’s artists. This exhibition spotlights the work of two important abstract painters, Thomas Kapsalis and Kenneth Nack, who began their artistic lives in Chicago during the 1940s.
Both artists attended the School of the Art Institute and graduated in 1949. Thomas Kapsalis chose to live and work in Chicago, while Kenneth Nack uprooted, traveled extensively, and finally settled in California. Placing miniretrospectives side-by-side, Parallels and Tangents encourages contrast and comparison, suggesting ways in which the artists grew apart as well as how their formative Chicago years left a permanent imprint on their work.
After graduation, Kenneth Nack moved to Paris, where he studied with Fernand Léger. In 1950, he was featured in LIFE magazine as one of the nineteen best young American painters. Nack traveled extensively in Mexico and Europe and ran a gallery in San Francisco before finally settling in Santa Barbara, California to teach. Nack was Chair of the Art Department at Santa Barbara City College for 35 years, and only recently retired at the age of 80. He has exhibited in numerous American and international museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many others.
Despite an international exhibition record, Kenneth Nack’s work has rarely been shown in Chicago since his departure. Parallels and Tangents will feature many of Nack’s never-before-seen pieces, focusing on his early 1940’s and 1950’s work, while also including his most recent collage and assemblage pieces completed in 2006.

Kenneth Nack Design C, 1950
oil on card stock paper
19.5" x 23.5"
Three years after graduating, Thomas Kapsalis traveled to Stuttgart, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship to study with painter Willi Baumeister. A year later Kapsalis moved back to Chicago, and while he has exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Corcoran Gallery of Art, most of his career has beenspent exhibiting in and around Chicago. He participated in the Exhibition Momentum shows in the early 1950s, and was also included in the 1969 Museum of Contemporary Art’s Imagist exhibition, Don Baum Sez ‘Chicago Needs Famous Artists, as well as the 1983 traveling exhibition, Chicago: Some Other Traditions. Kapsalis has taught in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for over 50 years.
A major retrospective of Kapsalis’s work was mounted at N.A.M.E. Gallery in 1985, but many of the pieces in Parallels and Tangents have never been exhibited, among them an abstract etching made collaboratively with Whitney Halstead, and a similarly biomorphic rug Kapsalis designed in 1955. Thomas Kapsalis and Kenneth Nack: Parallels and Tangents is curated by John Corbett, Adjunct Associate Professor at the School. This exhibition is supported, in part, by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a State Agency. Thomas Kapsalis and Kenneth Nack: Parallels and Tangents.

 

Thomas Kapsalis
Black + White, Etc., 1961
oil on canvas
19" x 20"
(collection of Scott Nielsen)

Admissions Office, 312.899-5219, admiss@artic.edu
Questions? webmaster@artic.edu

Bettr Rymer Gallery

Ken Nack received his master's degree in fine arts from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1948. This show has been organized by John Corbett of the Corbett-Dempsey Gallery and Trevor Martin, the director of The Betty Rymer Gallery at the Art Institute. Mr. Corbett is also a professor at the The Art Institude of Chicago. This show features early work from the 40's and 50's and then skips ahead to explore recent work. In short the start and the end of a life of art. Well, at 83 Ken may just be entering his mid career, but, time will tell. Also, sharing the show will be Thomas Kapsalis, fellow student in the 40's. Thomas Kapsalis.

Cruise the sky with Ken.

Flight information for our California friends. Suggested flight: U.S. Airways #6678 LAX to Chicago. Departing LAX Thursday, April 27 at 2:07pm - Arriving O'Hare at 8:00pm. Roundtrip $223.26. Booked on Expedia.

Corbett vs. Dempsey
1120 N. Ashland Ave. 3
Chicago, Il. 60622
773.278.1664
Hours: Fri. & Sat. 11-4 (& by appointment)

WELCOME TO KenNackArt.com

 

Pictured above in Paris with Fernand Leger, 1950 From “Look Magazine."

Nack and Fernand Léger. Photo Gene Fenn ©1949.

The following text is about a past show that Ken Nack had with his son Brad Nack in New York in May 2005. It was the first time they had shown together. By looking through this website you will see some interesting points in Ken Nack’s life as an Artist. Ken is 83 years old and works on his abstract art everyday. We hope to see you at the show in Chicago.

The following three works by Ken Nack will be included in this exhibition of 20 works. They represent a part of Nack's Childscape Series which was last shown in the 1950's. Nack will also show paintings that were made with Fernand Léger in 1949 at the Léger School Of Art in Paris as well as other rare and beautiful works from a lifetime of art. With Ken, his son Brad Nack will be showing new abstract oil paintings in their first joint exhibition.

Childscape Series ©1953 Ken Nack

Childscape Series ©1953 Ken Nack

Childscape Series ©1953 Ken Nack

Note from Brad Nack: I made this simple website for my Dad on September13th, 2003. He has lots of great abstract paintings and collages from the 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and to the present day. At 80 (now 83) he is still working on art every day. The new work is amazing. I plan on adding more to this webpage from time to time, but if you are interested in finding out more about his art it would be best to email us or to give him a call. His number is 805 682-2014, you need to let the phone ring at least 15 times and please don't call before 11am PST. (make it 20 times).