Artist Talk: Gladys Nilsson

Описание: Join artist Gladys Nilsson for a conversation about her new wall drawing at the Menil Drawing Institute. Nilsson discusses the development of this large-scale, site-specific work and how it connects to her long engagement with drawing, figuration, and narrative.

About the Artist

Born in Chicago in 1940, Gladys Nilsson studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1966, Nilsson’s work has been the subject of over 50 solo exhibitions, including sixteen at Phyllis Kind Gallery (1970–1979, 1981–1983, 1987, 1991, and 1994, Chicago and New York), and two at The Candy Store (1971 and 1987, Folsom, California). Her work also has been featured in many important museum exhibitions, such as: "Human Concern/Personal Torment" (1969, Whitney Museum of American Art); "Who Chicago?" (1981, Camden Art Center, London); "Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art" (1992, Los Angeles County Museum of Art); "Chicago Imagists" (2011, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin); and "What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art," 1960 to the Present (2014, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence). Nilsson is represented in the collections of major museums around the world, including: the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Morgan Library, New York; the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Nilsson is a recipient of the 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman Award.

The Artist Talk series is generously supported by the Cockrell Family Fund.

As always, Menil programs are free and open to all.

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Public Program of The Menil Collection, Houston, TX. September 4, 2025.