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Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
Phyllis Bramson has been selected as one of the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement recipients for 2014. The Lifetime Achievement Awards were first presented in 1979 in President Jimmy Carter’s Oval Office, to Isabel Bishop, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Other notable past honorees include Elizabeth Murray, Howardena Pindell, Suzi Gablik, Nancy Graves, Ellen Lanyon, Louise Bourgeois, and Lee Krasner. Past honorees have represented the full range of distinguished achievement in the visual art professions. This year’s recipients—Harmony Hammond, Adrian Piper, Faith Wilding, and Phyllis Bramson—are no exception. These awards are part of the Women’s Caucus for Art Annual Conference, held in conjunction with the Annual Conference of the College Art Association (of which the Women’s Caucus for Art is an affiliate group) that will be held in Chicago, February 2014.
The awards recognize the contributions made by women who have distinguished themselves by their activism and commitment to the women’s movement and to the arts. Selections for the Annual Honor Awards for Lifetime Achievement are among the most important actions the WCA takes to increase the recognition of women’s contributions in the visual arts. An illustrated catalogue with a short biography of each recipient and an essay in tribute to each recipient work and ideas, will accompany the award.
Women's Caucus for Art | www.nationalwca.org
“Small Personal Dilemmas” at Littlejohn Contemporary
A solo exhibition featuring new paintings and drawings.
Littlejohn Contemporary | 547 W. 27th St, New York | www.littlejohncontemporary.com
September 2013
“Vice/Virtue” at the Northern Illinois University Art Museum
Vice—immorality and wickedness—and virtue—moral goodness and righteousness—are often considered mutually exclusive. This broadly-interpreted theme is loosely based on the traditional seven “deadly sins” (wrath, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and gluttony) and the seven “heavenly virtues” (faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance and prudence). How do these qualities translate into contemporary society? This cluster of exhibitions focuses on the dynamics of particular vices, virtues or areas of overlap and intersection. There is a reception January 24, 2013 from 4:30–6 pm.
Northern Illinois University Art Museum | Altgeld Hall, NIU Campus, DeKalb, IL
www.niu.edu/artmuseum
January 8–February 23, 2013
“Love and Affection in a Troubled World” at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
A solo exhibition featuring mixed-media paintings. The opening reception will be April 19, 2013, 5–8 pm.
Zolla/Lieberman Gallery | 325 W. Huron, Chicago | www.zollaliebermangallery.com
April 19–May 24, 2013
Face Forward: The Art of the Self-Portrait"
A group exhibition featuring 44 artists presenting self-portraits in a common size but varying media. The opening reception will be November 30, 5–8 pm.
Printworks Gallery | 311 W. Superior St., Chicago | www.printworkschicago.com
November 30, 2012–February 9, 2013
“Dalliances of a Romantic Nature” at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
A solo exhibition featuring works on paper. Also showing: a group exhibition curated by Dan Mills featuring work by J. Fiber (aka James Esber and Jane Fine), Brad Kahlhamer, Johan Nobell, Nicky Nodjoumi and Gail Skudera.
Zolla/Lieberman Gallery | 325 W. Huron, Chicago | www.zollaliebermangallery.com
November 2–December 27, 2012
FIGURISM: Narrative and Fantastic Figurative Art
from the Illinois State Museum Collection
The Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery presents Figurism: Narrative and Fantastic Figurative Art from the Illinois State Museum Collection. Organized by Assistant Curator Doug Stapleton of the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery, the exhibition brings together historical and contemporary artwork that emphasizes the power and the range of the narrative and expressive figure in Midwest art. It does not try to define a regional figurative tradition but shows how ‘figurism’ has endured and evolved into pluralistic, eclectic, and highly individualized expressions.
Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery | James R. Thompson Center, Chicago | www.museum.state.il.us
January 30–February 3, 2012
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SOFA Chicago 2011: Lecture Series
Henry Darger's Bright and Guilty Place
Artist Phyllis Bramson is inspired and provoked by the “censoring side” of Henry Darger's images, particularly the feeling that his images might be often misunderstood or misdirected. In the presentation, she will address how her work and Darger's art intersect in that regard, and the ways Darger's concocted inner world has influencing her art making. Presented by Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago
SOFA Chicago 2011 | Room 326, Navy Pier, Festival Hall, Chicago | www.sofaexpo.com
Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2–3 pm.

Henry Darger
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Phyllis Bramson |
Chicago Gallery News features Phyllis Bramson work
The August–December 2011 Chicago Gallery News has an article, “Considering the Chicago Artist,” by Kevin Nance.
“And although abstraction and conceptual art hold greater sway than in the past, figurative painting, often with a surrealist bent, remains vital here. From Henry Darger, Ivan Albright and Seymour Rosofsky to Phyllis Bramson, Wesley Kimler and Kerry James Marshall, the figure is as close to an artistic through-line as there is in the history of Chicago art.”
To read more, download the article, “Considering the Chicago Artist,” by Kevin Nance. (PDF: 3.9 Mb)
Phyllis Bramson selected as a Distinguished Artist for 2012, along with Anne Wilson
In 1997, at the recommendation of the Art Committee, the Union League Club of Chicago established the Distinguished Artists program. The purpose of the program is to honor select Chicago-area artists for their contributions to both the visual arts and the community. In 2002, the Club extended the program to include authors and musicians. Internationally known, the artists who have been inducted into the program choose to make Chicago their home and continue to contribute to the cultural well-being and world-class status of our community. Some previously honored artists include: Dawoud Bey, Kerry James Marshall, Ed Paschke, Barbara Crane, Michiko Itatani, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, William Conger and Vera Klement. For more information, visit the Union League Club's Distinguished Artists Program website, www.www.ulcc.org
Chicago Odyssey
This exhibition is a collaboration between 24 Chicago artists each creating a scene or a story from Homer's Odyssey. Phyllis Bramson and Carole Harmel chose to represent the story of the Lotus-Eaters.
Printworks Gallery | 311 W. Superior St., Chicago | www.printworkschicago.com
October 21–November 26, 2011.
E Pluribus Unum: Artists Picture Society
This exhibit at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art offers the perspectives of modern and contemporary American artists whose works ponder ethnicity, gender, race, class, and political belief. The various understandings of these artists bear witness to who we are as a society and demonstrate the hopefulness and complexities inherent in regarding the United States as a great “melting pot.” Artists represented in the exhibition include Diane Arbus, Phyllis Bramson, Warrington Colescott, Christo, John Steuart Curry, Juan Sanchez, and Andy Warhol.
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art | 227 State Street, Madison, WI | www.mmoca.org
June 25, 2011–June 10, 2012.
Wonderland, a Bright and Guilty Place
Recent paintings and work on paper.
Philip Slein Gallery | 1319 Washington Ave., Saint Louis | www.philipsleingallery.com
September 16–October 29, 2011.
Provocateurs
Provocateurs will feature two painters: Phyllis Bramson and Adam Scott of Chicago.
John A. Day Gallery, Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts, University of South Dakota
Vermillion, South Dakota
November 1–November 30, 2011.
Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking: A Jim Nutt Companion
Further solidifying Nutt's stature as an internationally significant artist, Jim Nutt: Coming Into Character provides an excellent opportunity to expand the artistic framework in which to consider his work beyond Chicago's Hairy Who. Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking, a companion exhibition, includes work by more than 50 contemporary artists that resonates—either formally or through its subject matter—with aspects of Nutt's work. Based on the MCA Collection, and augmented with loans from private collections, Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking includes work by more than 50 contemporary artists that resonates—either formally or through its subject matter—with aspects of Nutt's work. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections that examine how artists look to comics, folk art and non-Western art as source material; representations of surrealist psycho-sexual dramas; the traditional portrait bust genre; and an architectural approach to materials that oscillates between 2-D drawings and 3-D forms. Artists represented in the exhibition include: Tomma Abts, Francis Bacon, Enrico Baj, Don Baum, Hans Bellmer, Phyllis Bramson, Victor Brauner, Chuck Close, George Condo, William Copley, Aaron Curry, Dominick Di Meo, Carroll Dunham, Oyvind Fahlstrom, James Falconer, Tony Fitzpatrick, John Graham, Art Green, Leon Golub, Theodore Halkin, Miyoko Ito, Rashid Johnson, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Wifredo Lam, Eric Lebofsky, Fernand Leger, Richard Lindner, Robert Lostutter, Jim Lutes, Rene Magritte, Margherita Manzelli, Kerry James Marshall, Matta, Wangechi Mutu, Bruce Nauman, Rachel Niffenegger, Gladys Nilsson, Paul Nudd, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Lari Pittman, Christina Ramberg, Martin Ramirez, Richard Rezac, Suellen Rocca, Kay Rosen, Peter Saul, Cindy Sherman, Diane Simpson, Steven Urry, Chris Ware, Andy Warhol, H. C. Westermann, Karl Wirsum, Frances Whitehead, Sue Williams, Scottie Wilson, Joseph Yoakum, Ray Yoshida, and Claire Zeisler.
Museum of Contemporary Art | 220 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago | www.mcachicago.org
January 29–May 29, 2011
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Awarded an Anonymous Was a Woman Grant for 2009
Anonymous Was a Woman is a grant program focused on supporting individual women artists. The phrase is taken from A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf’s classic statement of the challenges facing women seeking to create art. With these four words, Woolf succinctly and powerfully evoked the centuries-long struggle of women to gain recognition as artists. Yet there is much more to this innovative grant program than its thought-provoking name. Anonymous Was a Woman was created to fill a national need. In 1995, the National Endowment for the Arts, under intense political pressure, discontinued funding individual artists. This galvanized an unnamed woman artist in New York to take action. “It was obvious there was a need for more private support,” she later wrote. So she used her personal funds to help fill that void. Since 1996, Anonymous Was a Woman has awarded ten grants of $25,000 each per year, except one year when eleven were given. The purpose is to support women visual artists over the age of 45 who are at a critical juncture in their lives or careers. The overriding purpose of the grants is to allow artists to pursue their work. Read more about this organization at their website, www.philanthropyadvisorsny.org
Distinguished Alumni Award
The School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has instituted the Distinguished Alumni Award given to past alums based on their accomplishments to their field and community. Bramson was selected by the faculty to be one of their first celebrated alums. This award was presented at a reception for alumni during the CAA's conference held in Chicago, in February 2010.
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