Late fall exhibitions will showcase the faculty of the NIU School of Art.

October 27 – December 5, 2009, All Galleries: NIU School of Art Faculty Exhibition

Opening Reception Thursday October 29, 4:30 - 7:00 p.m

All four gallery spaces will be filled with recent work by NIU School of Art Faculty including Art History, Art Education and Design displays in the Hall Case Gallery, a video/performance space in the North Gallery; and installations in the turrets off of the South Galleries. This exhibition will highlight the work of over fifty practicing Illinois artists who also share their love of art by teaching at the university. 

Early Spring exhibitions explore popular culture as an influence and means of dissemination of ideas.

January 19 - March 5, 2010

BLAB! Midwest 2 

This exhibition focuses on the work of Midwestern artists Don Colley, Tom Huck, Teresa James, c.J. Pyle and Fred Stonehouse, featured in the acclaimed pages of BLAB! an anthology of sequential and comic art, illustration, painting, and printmaking.  Curated by Monte Beauchamp.

Cannonball Press

Making black & white woodblock prints with a recipe calling for 1 idea, 6 smatterings kick-ass juice and 6 spoons full of jumpstart and holler, Mike Houston and martin Mazorra run the explosive Cannonball Press in Brooklyn, New York.  Once called "world kings of scruffy pirate black and white hillbilly printmaking" they present an unabashed voice in their art and are among the leaders of a recent revival of the woodcut medium.

Heroes, Villains and the American Zeitgeist

Comic books from the Rare Book and Special Collections of the University Libraries.  From Captain america to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen these comics demonstrate the telling of morality tales of their time.  Curated by Lynne Thomas.

Opening Reception Thursday January 21, 4:30 - 7:00 p.m.

Late spring exhibitions will explore the impact of the artwork and arts projects of the new Deal Era

April 8 – May 28, 2010
This Great Nation Will Endure

Some of our most compelling and memorable images of the Great Depression were a result of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documentary photography project coordinated by Roy Stryker.  These images depicted the impact of the Great Depression on both rural and urban communities and were instrumental in eliciting support for the New Deal projects.  Photographers include: Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott and Jack Delano. Traveling exhibition organized by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum includes photographs and films. 

Coming of Age: The WPA/FAP Graphic Section and the American Print
New Deal prints and graphics spread the word for American unity and survival and put artists to work through the Works Progress Administration (WPA).  The artists not only explored new subjects such as “social viewpoint” art, but gave fine art status to printmaking by creating the Silk Screen Unit of the WPA/FAP (Federal Art Project) and promoted public interest in this new medium.  Co-organized with students enrolled in “Exhibition Interpretation,” a graduate-level Museum Studies course taught by WPA scholar and printmaker Peter Van Ael.

New Deal Era Images and Objects

Changing exhibits related to the New Deal period including novels on loan from rare Books and Special collections of the University Libraries and glass and ceramic ware of the depression era on loan from local collectors.

Thursday April 8th, 4:30 – 7:00 pm
Opening Reception for New Deal Era exhibitions.
Concert and Commentary by Bucky Halker: Woody Guthrie, The Great Depression and American Protest Songs - 6:00 p.m. Altgeld Hall, room 315.