Maker/Artist
Wirsum, Karl
American painter and sculptor, 1939-2021
Wirsum was one of a group of 1960s Chicago artists that produced work influenced by mass media, including comics, and non-Western art. Known as the Chicago Imagists, they relied on figuration at a time when abstract painting was still considered to the most important mode for art-making in the U.S. In 1966, a group known as the Hairy Who formed as the result of an exhibition of their work at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago o rganized by Don Baum. The show included Jim Falconer, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, and Suellen Rocca; Wirsum wasn’t a part of the collective until he appeared in the show. Wirsum lent the group its name.
