Ted Halkin Rediscovered Works, 1964–69

Press Release

In the North Gallery, CvsD is pleased to present a newly uncovered group of paintings and sculptures by Ted Halkin. The gallery has shown Halkin's work in two previous solo exhibitions.

Ted Halkin (1924-2020) was a central figure in Chicago's art scene for more than half a century. Emerging in the postwar period as one of the original members of the so-called Monster Roster, alongside Leon Golub, Dominick Di Meo, George Cohen, and Evelyn Statsinger, Halkin exhibited with Alan Frumkin Gallery in New York and Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago. He made paintings with low-relief elements and whimsical figures in earthen tones as well as biomorphic papier-mâché sculptures with orifices and knotted forms, sometimes featuring found furniture parts. In the mid-1960s, Halkin's work took a rather abrupt turn. The forms continued to be complex, biomorphic, and highly abstract, but the colors and overall composition shifted dramatically, moving into a bright, saturated palette and an open-ended, spatially labyrinthine compositional concept quite different from the earlier scenarios. Halkin's initial advances in this direction came in the form of the sculptures and their associated drawings, followed by a series of incredible canvases and works on paper made between 1967 and 1970, which have certain features in common with well-known Chicago Imagist artists – one might find similarities with Jim Nutt and Karl Wirsum works from the same period – but always much more abstractly composed. Some of these works were exhibited at the time, but a large group of them remained unshown by the time Halkin moved to a new house in Evanston in 1970. There the paintings were rolled and safely stored in the basement, where they stayed until 2023, when, in preparation for the exhibition Four Chicago Artists: Ted Halkin, Evelyn Statsinger, Barbara Rossi, and Christina Ramberg (which opened at the Art Institute of Chicago on May 11), they were rediscovered. Brilliant and as immaculate as the day they were painted, these paintings parallel the drawings in the AIC, their formal puzzles, glancing allusions to representation, and shivering color vibrations demonstrating how Halkin's creativity was in overdrive at the time. This exhibition presents a selection of these newly uncovered paintings and several important precursor sculptures, also unearthed in the artist's studio dwelling.