PIGMENT INTERNATIONAL TO SHOWCASE ARTISTS AT SPECTRUM CHICAGO | | From top row middle - Artists Howard Simmons, Candace Hunter, Edo, Salome Jaffe and Jesse Howard. | | |
The inaugural fair opens at THE MART, October 7–10
Pigment International will exhibit at the first-ever Spectrum Chicago Show, October 7–10 at THE MART (formerly the Merchandise Mart) — a new fair joining Chicago's fall art calendar with an opening night preview and three days of public programming.
Pigment's presentation features five artists, listed alphabetically: Edo, Jesse Howard, Candace Hunter, Salome Jaffe, and Howard Simmons. Throughout the run, Pigment will host a conversation bringing together the exhibiting artists with artists featured in the Obama Presidential Center's collection, plus a dedicated conversation with Edo about his series "COLOURS." Pigment will also welcome organizations and student groups for tours across the fair's four days.
The fair marks the public debut of Issue VI of Pigment International Magazine, which features an essay on Norman Teague and a treatise on the American flag as reimagined by Black artists — an extension of the traveling Get your copy at the fair or subscribe today.
EVENT DETAILS
Spectrum Chicago Show
October 7–10, 2026
THE MART (Merchandise Mart), Chicago
Opening Night Preview: Wed., Oct. 7, 5–8 PM (invitation Only)
Public Hours: Thu.–Fri. 11 AM–8 PM, Sat. 11 AM–6 PM
| | CHICAGO SCULPTURE EXHIBIT MARKS 25 YEARS OF PUBLIC ART | | Top row middle D. Lamar Preston and Patricia Andrews-Keenan. Right - Gwen Yen Chiu and D. Lamar Preston, past Richard Hunt Award winners, in conversation with Christie's Steven Zick. Bottom row - Gwen Yen Chiu, Steven Zick of Christies and D. Lamar Preston. Middle: a maquette of Preston's work Gifted to Me. Right - Sculptor Eric Stephenson and Naomi Davis, Blacks in Green. | | |
Anniversary gala honored Richard Hunt Award winners at Theater on the Lake
Chicago Sculpture Exhibit (CSE) marked 25 years of bringing large-scale public art to Chicago neighborhoods with an anniversary gala at Theater on the Lake. The evening's centerpiece was a conversation between past Richard Hunt Award winners Gwen Yen Chiu (2021) and D. Lamar Preston (2025), moderated by Christie's specialist Steven Zick.
Preston's award-winning sculpture, "Gifted to Me," is on view at the northwest corner of Stony Island and 62nd Street in Woodlawn, directly across from the Obama Presidential Center. Preston apprenticed with sculptor Richard Hunt for two years before Hunt's passing in 2023 and said the work honors tools and materials Hunt gave him.
CSE was founded in 2001 by then-Alderman Vi Daley as a small Lincoln Park initiative; it has since grown to place an average of 50 sculptures a year in neighborhoods across the city. The Richard Hunt Award, established in partnership with the sculptor in 2021 and now in partnership with the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation, offers $10,000 to emerging or mid-career sculptors for new public work. Applications for the 2027 award are now open. Hunt's birthday was September 12th. Hear the WBEZ interview with vice chair of the foundation board Jon Ott here.
Maquettes of past winners' sculptures were available for purchase at the gala, with proceeds benefiting CSE.
2027 Richard Hunt Award applications now open
| | MOCP'S "IF EMMETT TILL LIVED" OPENS WITH A HISTORIC CONVENING | | Middle row right - President of Columbia College Chicago Shantay N. Bolton. Bottom row - Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., foreground; background curator Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. | | |
An exhibition that imagines a life, not a loss
Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago opened "If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground" with an emotionally moving convening. The exhibition imagines the life Emmett Till might have lived had he safely returned home to Chicago, rather than dwelling on the violence that ended it. None of the roughly 70 photographs depict Till or his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley; instead, they envision the ordinary milestones and joys denied him.
The opening conversation paired curator Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, founder of Vision & Justice, with the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., Till's cousin, best friend, and the last living witness to his kidnapping. Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill, formerly of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, moderated the dialogue. Collaborators on the project included Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III, who just the day prior announced his retirement as Secretary of the Smithsonian, Chelsea Clinton, Ava DuVernay, Hank Willis Thomas, and Wynton Marsalis, each of whom selected an image reflecting their hopes for Till's unlived life.
The exhibition arrives fifty years into MoCP's history of engaging photography and justice. A companion volume, "If Emmett Till Lived: A Creative Monument," is available on Amazon.
Earlier this year, Blanc Gallery's "From Memory to Movement: Emmett at 85," curated by Raymond Thomas, marked the 85th anniversary of Till's birth.
Race relations in this country have too often required a shock to be seen — a boy in his casket, a knee on a neck. Photographers have forced us to look at ourselves unflinchingly. This exhibition asks us to imagine something different, something joyful. 'If' being the operative word.
EVENT DETAILS
"If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground"
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago
On view now
| UIC GALLERY 400 TRACES A PRINTMAKING LEGACY FROM HARLEM TO CHICAGO | Works by Charles White, Robert Blackburn and Romare Bearden in "Press & Pull" tracing six decades of printmaking history, from Harlem to Chicago. | |
Press & Pull" connects the Blackburn Workshop to the city's own printmaking history
"Press & Pull: A Legacy of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop" opened at UIC's Gallery 400, tracing the history of the nation's oldest continuously operating cooperative print shop. Founded in New York in 1947 by artist and master printer Robert Blackburn, the workshop offered space and opportunity to artists of color during segregation.
The touring exhibition features more than 35 original prints, archival ephemera, and video from the workshop's archive, with work by legacy and contemporary artists including Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Kerry James Marshall, and Elizabeth Catlett. Gallery 400's presentation adds a supplementary selection of prints identifying parallels between the Blackburn Workshop and Chicago's own printmaking history, including the founders of the South Side Community Art Center, among them Dr. Margaret Burroughs and Eldzier Cortor.
That comparative approach traces threads contributing to Chicago's printmaking scene: the Great Migration, the arrival of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Bloc, the Black Arts Movement, and communal skill-sharing cultivated in the city's print shops and printers' guilds.
The exhibition is free and open to the public, giving the next generation of Chicago artists a direct look at the legends who came before them.
EVENT DETAILS
"Press & Pull: A Legacy of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop"
Gallery 400, University of Illinois Chicago
Free and open to the public
| THELMA HARRIS GALLERY CELEBRATES COLTRANE AT 100 DURING WHITE LINEN AFTERNOON | Top: Gallery owner Thelma Harris with artist Wosene Worke Kosrof | Thelma Harris Gallery in Oakland hosted White Linen Afternoon featuring an exhibition of artist Wosene Worke Kosrof's work honoring the centennial of John Coltrane's birth in August. Wosene, celebrated for transforming Ethiopia's Amharic script into rhythmic, calligraphic abstraction, is featured in Issue VI of Pigment International Magazine. |
Saturday's Student Gala Exhibition, hosted by the non-profit Art is Life, sent every piece of student art home with a buyer. The non-profit founded by Gerald Griffin and his wife, Frantzie Bourdeau-Griffin offers skilled guidance in painting, sketching, and figure modeling for students ages 12 – 19, all at no cost. |
SEEN AT THE AFRICAN FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS | Artists LaShun Beal and Woodrow Nash at the African Festival of the Arts in Chicago. (Photos courtesy of African Festival of the Arts) |
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BRING THIS ITALIAN HOME
Order select Villa Schnosa wines in AprIl using Promo Code "PIGMENT20" and members receive 20% off purchases of 2+ bottles. 10% of orders during April will be donated to Pigment. International "
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