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| Evelyn Statsinger | |
|---|---|
| Name | Evelyn Statsinger |
| Birth date | 1927 |
| Death date | 2016 |
| Birth place | Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Painting, Drawing, Printmaking |
| Training | Institute of Design (New Bauhaus), Art Institute of Chicago |
Evelyn Statsinger was an American artist associated with mid‑20th century Chicago modernism, known for intimate drawings, delicate paintings, and distinctive prints that bridge Surrealist imagination and Midwestern sensibility. Her career spanned teaching, exhibitions, and participation in influential Chicago art circles, placing her in dialogue with national movements and institutions. Statsinger’s work entered major public and private collections and she became a touchstone for later generations of Chicago artists and educators.
Born in Chicago in 1927, Statsinger grew up amid the cultural institutions of the city and the artistic networks that included the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art. She studied at the Institute of Design (formerly the New Bauhaus), where she encountered figures linked to the Bauhaus migration to the United States and to educators associated with the Illinois Institute of Technology. Her instructors and peers connected her to broader currents represented by the Peggy Guggenheim circle in New York, the Abstract Expressionist developments around the Pollock and de Kooning milieus, and the Midwest art communities centered on the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hyde Park art scene.
Statsinger’s professional trajectory intersected with galleries, museum exhibitions, and artist-run spaces in Chicago and beyond, including relationships with collectors and curators tied to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She exhibited alongside contemporaries active in the local avant‑garde, participating in group shows that linked her to movements associated with the Modern Art Council and the American Abstract Artists network. Her career also involved print collaborations with regional print studios, engagements with biennials such as those organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, and inclusion in surveys that connected Midwestern art to national narratives exemplified by exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Statsinger’s visual language combined surreal, biomorphic motifs with a refined draughtsmanship that recalls affinities with Surrealist artists represented in the Peggy Guggenheim collection, European émigré designers from the Bauhaus tradition, and contemporaneous American painters associated with the New York School. Her work shows formal correspondences with the delicate line work of Odilon Redon and the uncanny figuration seen in the work of artists exhibited by the Museum of Modern Art, while also reflecting local influences from Chicago figures linked to the Chicago Imagists and the broader Illinois art community. Critics have compared her sensibility to artists whose work circulated through institutions such as the Whitney Biennial, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Key works in Statsinger’s oeuvre include intimate drawings and lithographs that entered collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, and regional museums such as the Field Museum and the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. Solo exhibitions at notable galleries and institutions brought her work into contact with curators and collectors associated with the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrospectives and group surveys connected her to artists with histories in the New Deal art programs, the Chicago Imagists exhibitions, and national touring shows organized by the American Federation of Arts. Her prints and paintings have been exhibited alongside works from collections of the National Gallery of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Throughout her career Statsinger taught and mentored students in Chicago institutions linked to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Chicago arts programs, and regional colleges that fostered arts education in Illinois. Her pedagogical practice intersected with curricula influenced by the Institute of Design and the pedagogy of émigré Bauhaus instructors, creating lines of influence that extended to faculty associated with the Art Institute and the Illinois arts community. Former students and colleagues who went on to positions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hyde Park Art Center, and various university art departments cite her mentorship in the context of Chicago’s postwar art education networks.
Statsinger received recognition from regional arts organizations and institutions that supported Midwestern artists, earning grants, fellowships, and acquisitions by major museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and national collections represented at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. Her work was included in juried exhibitions and biennials that conferred visibility comparable to artists honored by the National Endowment for the Arts and foundations that support printmaking and drawing. Curatorial attention from staff at the Smart Museum, the Illinois Arts Council, and major metropolitan museums contributed to her legacy within American art history.
Her personal life was rooted in Chicago’s neighborhoods and cultural circles that encompassed artists, curators, and educators associated with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, and local artist cooperatives. After her death in 2016, retrospectives, acquisitions, and scholarship by curators and historians at institutions such as the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and university presses have reinforced her position within narratives of Midwestern modernism. Contemporary artists, educators, and curators working in Chicago and beyond continue to cite her drawings and prints in exhibitions and publications that link local practice to national institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the National Gallery of Art.
Category:1927 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Artists from Chicago Category:American painters