George Cohen: Artist of the Chicago Avant-Garde

This exhibition celebrates collector Ellen Stern’s recent gift of five works by 20th-century artist George Cohen. The two paintings, two drawings, and one mixed-media object date from mid-century, when Cohen was a leading figure in Chicago’s avant-garde art world. With Cosmo Campoli, Leon Golub, and June Leaf, he organized annual “Momentum Exhibitions” that caused critics to dub the group a “new Chicago School.” The five pieces in this show demonstrate his concern with issues such as the tension between two and three-dimensional space and the use of unconventional materials, interests that ally him with contemporaries throughout the country.